Born in 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa, Holograph released a handful of singles before going on hiatus in 2023. However, the project initiated by Warren Fisher, Desmond Kannemeyer and Ines Soutschka is back in the spotlight with The Manor EP and a line-up reshuffled around Fisher and Soutschka, relocated to Amsterdam. This personal story is inextricably linked with the music: The Manor is a testimony to this period when three musicians found themselves stuck with nothing to do but write music.
What's immediately appealing about Holograph is the mix of influences. Their dark, melancholy rock owes as much to post-punk as it does to the blues, which gives it both its toughness and its drive. The rain of Manchester and the dazzling sunshine of the desert come together on Crystal Clear, a hypnotic opener that exudes a psychedelic yet sinister scent. The band warms us up with the nostalgic poetry of Unterwelt, which is less anxiety-provoking: Holograph alternates between mysterious dreaminess and cold poetry, softness and heavier passages like the conclusion of Open Your Eyes, a slightly gloomy waltz with gothic contours that particularly catches our attention. While the emotions never spill over the edge and Holograph contain themselves, the intensity is there, creeping along, pulsating in the nervous bass of Outside, for example.
The Manor gives off a bittersweet impression. As nostalgia lurks again during the Green Sky finale, we are reminded that it is the memory of a time when three friends created Holograph together. This manor is haunted by shared memories, but it's also the last glimpse back in time of expatriates who are now going their separate ways. With its sometimes driving, sometimes hallucinatory guitars, its introspective, contemplative vocals and the nuances it contains, The Manor has the flavour of a pleasant dream from which you're waking up, which is already slipping away, but you're still trying to make out its pleasant contours to enjoy it one last time. It's pleasant that such a young band, on one of its first releases and looking to the future, already has this melancholy and underlying twilight tone: Holograph seems to begin at the end, with a farewell. That's a guarantee of vigour for the years to come!
