Single/Video Review: Fingertips

Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to come across the incredible album When Turkeys Fly by Turkey The Bird which meant I was determined to see them when they came to Auckland and had an amazing evening. One member of that trio is André Manella, who has also been touring as Sonic Delusion, and over the last eight years he has played more than 800 shows and released five albums. He has just landed in Switzerland for a tour there and to celebrate this he has released his latest single, Fingertips, which is a song about the inner battle of a touring musician, “sometimes you just really miss home when you’re on the road playing shows and when you’re at home you really miss touring and playing shows”

André is of course not the first, and probably not the last, to put those feelings to music and lyrics, with the most famous probably being Iron Maiden and Wasted Years, but even though that is one of my favourite metal tracks it doesn’t have the sheer feel-good feature of this. With rippling keyboards, delicate percussion which assists in giving this a very different, almost West Indian, feel, with bass and layered guitars, this is a song which has a groove which makes it impossible to listen to without moving. André has a wonderful voice, and the listener is quickly dragged into a number which sounds like summer sun, warm and glorious. Lyrically I love the chorus, as on one line he says, “I feel it in my fingertips, when I touch your skin” and then the next line is “I feel it in my fingertips, when the strings are cutting in”. I fell in love with this the first time I played it, and after about four or five plays this was embedded like an ear worm, totally living up to his vision of being “too funky for folk and too folky for funk”. Folk, pop, indie, funk, all blend together to create something delicious.

The video finds us moving between watching a dancer (Marie Hermo Jensen, who deserves a namecheck) and André playing guitar in his hotel room or at home, switching between electric and acoustic. It is a delicately shot film, perfectly in keeping with the song, bringing it all together. This is planned to be the first of three singles being released over the next month, and all I can say is “bring it on” as this is sheer delight from beginning to end.