Brrr, cold anyone? Well, unless you’ve got the honour and privilege of living in a nice warm country where you don’t get battered by arctic winds, pelted by icy rain and generally frozen to death you’re not experiencing a true British winter, and more fool you.
Even though we’ve just crept into February, we’ve already stocked up on our Factor 40 suncream in eager anticipation for the few days of sunshine that we might actually get sometime near the end of July. But to make sure that we don’t freeze to death in the meantime, we’ll throw some more coal on the fire and listen to this week’s MySpace Trawl band, a band with songs that remind us of happy days drinking strong cider in a field somewhere, tanning our man-boobs and then complaining it’s too hot. Thank God for Tunng.
Before we begin we’ll just clarify that we haven’t come down with a slight case of dyslexia and spelt the band's name wrong. It definitely is Tunng. Not Tongue. And, though Tongue would be a crap name for band, Tunng strangely seems better even though it more or less sounds the same.
Tunng is one of those acts that we like because they're not strictly confining themselves into one specific genre. We’ve worked out that they are somewhere between acoustic folk and dreamy-vocalled electronic. That’s what we say, the band themselves give a much detailed description. So being slightly lazy, here’s what they say:
“Tunng play a mesmerising mix of folky acoustics and busy electronica, overlaying electronic crackles, gorgeous harmonies, bewitching mantras and synthetic beats that are reminiscent of early Beta Band, 'The Wicker Man' soundtrack and Four Tet.”
Confused? If so, then we’ll just tell you that their music is the shit, and should be heard by as many people as possible. The songs all sparkle in their own unique way, paving the way for them to be played in the middle of the day whilst basking in the summer sun or during the night around a blazing campfire. But just because we say they can be appreciated round a campfire, it doesn’t mean that Tunng music for just for hippies. Wait, that could come across as being slightly racist and discriminatory. Please don’t complain to Channel 4 about us. Everyone can listen to the music of Tunng, it’s, that good.
Out of the four tracks that Tunng have on their funky-looking MySpace page is one of our personal favourite tracks from all the output they’ve released over their two albums. The track in question is Jenny Again and it actually makes us upset that a song so pretty can be blanked by the music industry in favour od bland, dull, repetitive drivel. The track eases in with some gorgeous guitar that stays throughout the duration of the track. Gentle and uncomplicated beats accompany alongside the guitar work, showing that sometimes simplicity is often more then having multiple layers of music that can sometimes easily distract the listener. As for the vocals and lyrics, they are clean, clear and crisp throughout – and for the first time in our recollection, mentions everybody’s favourite overpriced service station food chain Little Chef! Maybe the song was written over a full English breakfast one morning. JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a coffee shop, so why not a great pop song being written in a greasy spoon…
Equally, all of the other songs have their own unique charm about them, and it’s hard for us to pick a favourite. We won’t shove our opinion onto you; we’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourself. Alongside the audio treats are videos for the tracks Woodcat, Fair Doreen, Jenny Again and Its Because… We’ve Got Hair. If that wasn’t good enough for you, are links to the MySpace pages of artists they’ve remixed, including King Creosote, who we’ve already looked at on a previous Trawl.
If you like the nicely-designed artwork of the records and background image, you can also buy sexily-designed T-shirts to wear down the local disco and become the envy of all your friends. Music can also be downloaded to thanks to handy links to approved downloading sites. Finally, if any of our New York-based hecklers are free on the March 3, they can check the band out. So if you want a sound reminiscing of summers past, we highly recommend the sounds of Tunng.
Read more:
96dbFreak says
On the basis that you recommended Sound Team’s “Movie Monster” and it fast became one of my favourite albums of last year, I’ll definitely be checking this one out.