MANKAI is a new project of Berlin-based drummer and composer Max Santner. The collective is comprised of Dora Osterloh (vocals), Silvan Schmid (trumpet), Simon Jermyn (bass) and Max Santner (drums, composition).

On the new album NAME THE COLOR they melt spontaneity, creativity and musical interaction into a unique band-sound. Tightly composed structures, open sound textures, repetitive melodic patterns and intertwined, overlapping rhythms build the framework for collective improvisation.

MANKAI’s central aim is to constantly listen to each other and try to develop new sonic worlds by experimenting together.
The album title refers to a Zen proverb: „Name the color, blind the eye“. It describes a tendency in our society to focus too much on single aspects of an increasingly complex world and thereby lose track of the bigger picture. In a sense the need to categorize things and to look at them separately.

The compositions on the album strive to be an antithesis to this tendency, inspired by the idea of thinking about music as a holistic and connecting force. An attempt to find one’s own creativity and become collective inventors, free of categories and genres.