No Mana Recalls his Yesterdays

No Mana Recalls his Yesterdays: Electro-house producer No Mana has been a fan of electronic music for as long as he can remember.

“If I really had to pick the ultimate starting point, it’d probably be when my grandpa installed a new sound system in his 1999 Honda Odyssey and we abused it with several repeats of ‘Sandstorm’ by Darude right when the song came out,” he says. “I was like 6 at the time. My musical background started with orchestra classes in middle to high school playing the viola, and some garage band stuff where I played the electric guitar. In 2012 after being intrigued by the sounds many artists were making at the time, I started producing with a friend in a duo project in an effort to figure out how to make those sounds together. We then ended up starting our own projects, and eventually, went off to our separate career paths. There were two points in my life where I made jumps to take my career more seriously. The first was when I got my first music paycheck in 2014, which shortly after without thinking I quit both college and my job. The second was playing my first show in 2015 with deadmau5 which immediately opened up the touring part of my career.”

No Mana says that the goal with his sound has been to harness the influence of emotional memories.

“A lot of them involve dance music in the background,” he says. “I could say, ‘Yeah, I sound like electro house with a ¼ teaspoon of progressive house and techno,’ but in my head my goal is to make music that reflects old emotions, and that kind of dance music just happened to be a huge part of my life, and therefore making it my medium of expression.”

Regarding the state of electronic music in L.A., the artist says that there’s a lot going on, yet it’s harder for new musicians to get going.

“Probably because of living costs (especially flights) mixed with saturation of newer artists – although, many of which seem to be able to make it just releasing music independently nowadays, which is amazing,” he says. “This space has its ups and downs and despite hiccups from COVID it still seems pretty steady long-term, but I’m the worst person to give out a reliable consensus where electronic music is now. I prefer to keep my head down and focus on my art when I can.”

His latest release is the “Yesterday” single.

“I wasn’t involved in the lyric-writing process but I just think it’s cool that after going on a spiel about how nostalgic I want the project to be, this track called ‘Yesterday’ seems to resonate with that message,” he says. “What I feel the song and No Mana have in common is its theme of being trapped in the past but being able to reminisce at the same time.”

No Mana Recalls his Yesterdays: No Mana’s “Yesterday” single is out now on Monstercat.

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