Mankind In Design is the solo creation of El Paso musician Victor Valero. The music is heavily influenced by Valero's early roots in rock, heavy metal and punk but also contains elements of other genres such as world, space, psychedelic, jazz and avant-garde music. Most importantly the sound evolved from Valero's early days in El Paso band The Fold, for which he played bass and sang vocals. The Fold's overall sound was a mixture of punk, eerie psychedelia and hypnotic horror. Along with fellow founding member Chris Rakas, The Fold set out to create a style all their own - a goal which they can both say was achieved over many years of experimentation and refining. The Fold would come to their height in the mid to late nineties with the addition of drummer and percussionist Raul Erivez. Their live sound was unparalleled by any other local artists and the group would quickly gain a devoted cult-like following. After releasing only one full-length, self-titled album and playing only a handful of shows over a three-year time span, The Fold would come to an end by the summer of 2000.

 

  

Rakas and Valero would sporadically continue to collaborate throughout the following years. They would even re-form The Fold with local artist and musician Tom Knowles as their drummer. The new trio would ultimately play The Fold's final show at Lucky Devil's in El Paso, TX in August 2006. Valero's time in The Fold would become the most important artistic learning experience for the sound he would seek to achieve in his solo endeavors and though Valero would not seek to duplicate the sound of The Fold, the music of Mankind In Design does revolve heavily around the same premise of hypnotic vocals and trance-like instrumentation. The goal of Mankind In Design's music has always been to find the delicate balance between electronic music and live sound. While many electronic musicians tend to fall into genres such as dance, techno, noise and the many other electronic genres which rely heavily on beats, Valero's goal has always been to make a sound that a live band could recreate.

  

 

The tracks on these four full-length releases (As The Followers Bow Beyond Delight Of Their Use, The Gift Of Knowledge, Together We'll Be and Dreams Of Life) cover approximately fifteen years of songwriting for Valero, with some tracks dating as far back as 1999. It is with great pleasure and excitement that these albums have been made available and there will be more releases in the near future, so stay tuned.

Feburary 17th 2022