Pino Manci Sings Borriquito an Other International Hits

What can be said about Pino Manci? When entering his name on Google you get the reply “Did you mean: Pino Manic?” So all we know is the little information that is offered on the cover. Pino led a combo in the Safari Room at the Kyalami Ranch, South Africa. The repertoire that made it onto this record is sung in five different languages, French, Italian, Portuguese, English and Spanish. As can be deducted form the photo’s on the cover, Pino was a man of the world. We may assume Pino is Italian and the reason he chose for life as an excile in South Africa will forever remain unknown. We assume however that Pino kind of had it all worked out, living in the hotel, with the Safari Room as his personal little woman trap where unsuspecting ladies would be enchanted by sudden keychanges and an impressive display of multilingualism. Of course the copy we own is signed and dedicated – to one Petronella. Most telling is the little card he inserted in the sleeve with his roomnumber on it and a second secret message to Petronella that Pino will always remember her when he plays the record “Popcorn”.

Anyway, the music is enjoyable for it’s ridiculousness alone, but it has two tracks worth mentioning. One is a fuzzed out beat track called Vieni Con Me with a tough guitar solo, that, dispite the 6 bars that it lasts, runs out of ideas halfway. Still it’s an instant hit.

The second one is called In the Space and has pretty ambitious string arrangements while Pino ponders the link between the cosmos and his love for a certain girl. “Let me be the space that your eyes move over” is one unforgetable line, but there are many more and in the end the song reads as an intricate cosmic poem to which Pino’s weird pronunciation only adds more quality.

Listen to: Vieni Con Me

Listen to: In the Space