Ellis Mano Band - Here And Now (2019) [CD Rip]

In Switzerland, the members of The Ellis Mano Band are not unlike the Wrecking Crew or the Funk Brothers; top flight studio musicians and elites in the bigger-than-you’d-think Swiss music scene.
Vocalist Chris Ellis was a regular on Swiss and German television and radio and on the summer open air concert scene. Edis Mano was a stadium-filling celebrity in the Balkans as a youth, before backing all the top names in Switzerland. Top session bassist Severin Graf is known in Switzerland as “Mr. Groove.” And drummer Nico Looser backed Tracy Chapman and others while working in the US before serving for years in the band of Switzerland’s top late night TV show.
He also played on Bob Dylan protégée and band alumnus Scarlet Rivera’s album “Journey With An Angel” (on which Dylan also appeared), and toured with her as well. But as they spent years supporting other artists, the members never got much time to make music of their own. Now, after a year-long collaboration, the formidable foursome has developed a set of searing rock and blues-inspired songs that make up their debut album ‘Here and Now’.
With ‘Here and Now’, The Ellis Mano Band presents a rich tapestry of universal joy and sorrow; the dive into a bottle after a heartbreak in Whiskey, the search for home in Where We Belong, and the searing sensuality of summer and new love in the title track Here and Now. Chris’s voice is like Kentucky bourbon; smooth as glass but with an addictive burn. He sings with a tense sincerity that pairs gorgeously with the lyrical ferocity of Edis’s guitar.
Every track is rich with perfectly chosen detail; tasteful Hammond B3, the sweet appeal of horns that reflect the blazing summer heat during which they were recorded, the background choirs that could have come directly in from Muscle Shoals.