In 2003, at 20 years old, Mangan completed his first set of recordings: an EP of simply recorded acoustic songs called All at Once, pressing 500 copies which were given away and sold throughout the Vancouver area while attending the University of British Columbia. With a bank loan and a small community of musicians who would offer cheap or free sessions, Mangan recorded Postcards & Daydreaming in the summer of 2005 with local British ex-pat Daniel Elmes and good friend Simon Kelly. Mangan released the album independently at first, selling the album online and at live shows. In July 2007, Vancouver-based independent record label File Under: Music picked up the LP and re-released the album with new artwork and an extra track, “Ash Babe”. The following March, the record was released in Australia by ABC/Warner.
In March 2009, File Under: Music released another short-play recording called Roboteering EP, containing songs from Mangan’s forthcoming album Nice, Nice, Very Nice. The album was recorded in Toronto, Ontario, at Green Door Studios with producer John Critchley, and featured an assortment of other Canadian artists such as Veda Hille, Justin Rutledge, Mark Berube, Hannah Georgas and members of Said The Whale, Major Maker, and Elliott Brood. Five months later, Nice, Nice, Very Nice was released in Canada. After years of steady touring, and with his second full-length release, Mangan was starting to get noticed across his home country. The first two singles from his second full-length, “Robots” and “Road Regrets” earned airplay on local Vancouver radio stations, as well as on satellite radio stations such as The Verge and CBC Radio 3. The album name was inspired by a line from American novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s book Cat’s Cradle, while musically Nice, Nice, Very Nice has been compared to Chad VanGaalen and Bon Iver.
In September 2009, Mangan was awarded “Artist of the Year” from the Verge Music Awards which sent a surge of attention and press his way. In 2010, Nice, Nice, Very Nice was licensed and released by Toronto based independent record label Arts & Crafts in Europe and the United States, garnering a larger international presence for Mangan’s music. In September 2010, the album was shortlisted by a jury of 200 Canadian journalists, music critics and media personnel for the Polaris Music Prize, which seeks to award the “best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label”. Other shortlisted nominees included Karkwa (winner of the prize), Broken Social Scene, Caribou, Owen Pallett, The Besnard Lakes, Tegan and Sara, Shad, The Sadies and Radio Radio.
Mangan and his band have been recording with Vancouver based producer/engineer Colin Stewart, working toward a third full-length album. On May 28, 2011, Mangan officially announced the title of the new album as being Oh Fortune to his audience at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. He has been playing several songs from the forthcoming album live, including the title track, “Post-War Blues” and “Rows of Houses,” which was inspired by the film Stand By Me.
On July 4, 2011, the artwork for Oh Fortune was revealed, along with a free download of the title track, on Mangan’s official website. The album was released on September 27 in North America.
