The Undiscovered: Manu Lafargue

French guitar player Manu Lafargue submitted a fourteen song demo CD-R entitled Man! Featuring instrumental songs in various styles, including rock, blues and progressive, the demo could use a lot more editing in the sense that the phrasing and performance comes across as too improvised and off-the-cuff (i.e. not composed). Many times the soloing is off key, and if tracking were done with more care and forethought, a better performance would be the end result. Lafargue also needs to work on stronger themes for his music, or else collaborate with a keyboard player or other guitarist who can bring compositional strengths to the demo. Like a lot of demos, its a good start to have a number of tracks out there to get feedback, but Lafargue needs to spend a lot more time in pre-production and composing in order to catch more ears with his work.

Manu was born in Tours, France on December 26th, 1971. He started playing the guitar at the age of fifteen. He graduated from the Center of Musical Information in Paris, and was also instructed by Peter Nathanson. For over 15 years, Manu has been playing and recording with different groups, from rock to variety. He teaches guitar and bass to students in his own musical school, and also works with a singer in a progressive rock project. Manu cites as his influences Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen and Billy Sheehan, and has an arsenal of guitars, including a Vigier, Lag, Ibanez and electro classical guitars. He prefers a Laney head running through a Marshall loudspeaker, and uses pedals and a Rocktron intellifex.

Lafargue recorded his demo at home on an eight-track recorder, and played all the instruments himself.

Manu Lafargue
France