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It wasn’t easy, however. Troubled by collective writers’ block, they embarked on a tour last year with desert bluesmen Tinariwen, finding common ground in their very different musical heritages that produced a snaky, loose-limbed hybrid of both bands’ work that freed up their minds. Their asses, as George Clinton once predicted, soon followed, and after three albums that gradually toned down the blips and squelches, …And Then We Saw Land is littered with electronic flourishes which take Tunng far beyond the ‘folktronica’ tag they’ve been handed. In fact, if you look at it from the other direction, they’ve become less a folk band with bleepy bits and more the acoustic Hot Chip.
This set is dazzling in its breadth. The most traditional track here, the almost a cappella These Winds, could be a group of pub singers by a forest inn fireside, and yet it’s sandwiched between By Dusk They Were in the City, which features a Thin Lizzy-esque guitar solo, and Santiago, which circles a cute synth melody and looped handclaps. And then there is The Roadside. If it was played by robots it would be hailed as Kraftwerk at their epic best; if it was shrouded in layers of guitars small indie boys would be throwing their caps in the air that Spiritualized’s return was nigh. But it isn’t. It’s largely acoustic but has all the repetitive, explosive, shuddering and gliding hallmarks of a Motorik classic or an indie gospel masterpiece.
Throughout, there is a sense of rebirth, nowhere more so than in the voice of Becky Jacobs. This is the first time on an album she’s taken centre stage, and her new-found confidence swims through everything else.
Tunng were always the eccentric cousins of British folk: a band born in a basement that played seat-of-the-pants shows with Malian freedom fighters, at ease with traditional folk music as cut up loops and samples. That, however, is a world they’ve outgrown. Instead of shadowing the pack, this album puts them right up the front. --Andy Fyfe
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`...And Then We Saw Land' is by far Tunng's most accessible work yet, its bigger scope allowing Lindsay's ear for melody to take centre stage. In `Hustle' they have their first radio-friendly hit, a cute shuffle flavoured with banjos and African-flavoured percussion (they've clearly been taking some notes since touring with members Tinariwen last year). Elsewhere they take their trademarks of delicate fingerpicked guitar and nature imagery and apply them to their most memorable tunes yet.
But this is by no means a reluctant bid for commercial appeal. It is a shame to see a curtail of the liberal use of samples and electronics which made their earlier albums so distinctive - the bleepy refrains which make up the second half of the album will be greeted warmly by their fans - but the songwriting is stronger than ever and the fact the band has been fleshed out never compromises the songs' intimacy. There's none of the grating filler that 2007's `Good Arrows' suffered. "Don't look down or back" sings the 15-person `Mega Chorus' of mates on the epic track of the same name. It's a philosophy that the confident and fully-formed Tunng of this fine fourth album clearly shares.
They are often described as Folk but there is no Celtic nostalgia here, no melodies reverse engineered across the pond through modal tuning, no longing for the mines, no working hardship, pirates, poachers, highwaymen or lords and ladies dancing. If this references the past it is the whimsical innocence of Barrett's Floyd or the lyrical brilliance of Ray Davies at his peak. Their work speaks not to the England that would break us but to the England in our hearts, or perhaps the one just a step or two beyond the looking glass.
There is some very different stuff here from This is Tunng - Mother's Daughter and Other Songs and Comments. This feels like a continuation of some of the trajectories in Good Arrows. I like it a lot, although it doesn't appeal to me quite as much as the earlier stuff.
But then, if they stayed in the same groove with each new record then it would get boring wouldn't it?
I've witnessed the term 'folktronica' attached to them elsewhere.
(Giggle! Read more
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