At the Moment

Since his early EPs on DJ Koze’s Pampa Records, Mano Le Tough has quietly become one of deep house’s most dependable voices—an Irish producer, now based in Zurich, whose records have always favoured warmth over fireworks. At the Moment, his first full-length since 2015’s Changing Days and his debut album for the Hamburg label that shaped his early years, swaps club-only instincts for eccentric, guitar-touched house-pop across 12 tracks, the kind of record Resident Advisor neatly characterised as “an eccentric LP of pop songs and house tracks”.

Opening track Man of Aran sets out the stall immediately: named after the windswept islands off Ireland’s west coast, it’s built on fingerpicked guitar, soft-focus vocals and a melody that seems to drift in on the tide. Empty Room follows with the record’s most immediate chorus, its padded synth bass and gently swung beat carrying a vocal that feels confiding rather than performed. There’s a looseness to these songs that Mano Le Tough’s club records never quite allowed—a sense of musicians playing, not producers arranging.

When the four-to-the-floor finally arrives, it’s worth the wait. Aye Aye Mi Mi is the most persuasive club moment here, a chunky, swinging groove with a bassline that slinks rather than stomps, whilst Pompeii stretches out over six and a half minutes, its shimmering arpeggios and patient build the closest thing to a peak-time tool. So Many so Silent closes the run with tighter drums and a vocal hook that lingers long after the track has faded.

The album’s oddities are its most endearing feature. Snow on Bamboo is a two-and-a-half-minute guitar sketch that wouldn’t sound out of place on a soundtrack record, and Short Cuts plays with time like a pause between courses. Best of all is Fadó Fadó—Gaelic for “long, long ago”—a wistful, half-remembered ballad that reads like a letter home from a long way away.

At the Moment isn’t a record for every floor, and its eccentrics will frustrate anyone expecting a straight run of club tools. But that’s rather the point. Ten years into his career, Mano Le Tough sounds freer and more human than ever—loose, warm and entirely unbothered about fitting in—and the resulting album is his most charming to date.