Tunng

Mother's Daughter and Other Songs

(Ace Fu)

Record Review by Daniel Brody

Labeled “Folktronica,” Tunng are part of a burgeoning scene of indie electronic bands rediscovering weird old instruments like guitars.  Remember those stringy paddle thingamajigs?  Turns out that even in the age of digitally reproduced sounds and sample-happy songcraft, guitars still have a use in electronic music as the muse itself.  Tunng take a guitar, play a folk melody on it that sounds like it was plucked straight out of the Scarborough Faire, and then rejigger and loop it, before backing it up with ragged beats.  To prominently call the music some kind of folk music—and connect it back to Bob Dylan and medieval times—is a bit rich, as Tunng use folk music the same way early hip-hop DJs used James Brown scats and guitar licks:  they feed off the energy and authenticity of folk music to create an electronic chill out session with a more organic feel.  Picture Radiohead’s Kid A unplugged, rather than Paul Simon with a beatbox.

Mother’s Daughter and Other Songs has a very confessional, late night atmosphere; swampy beats and murky acoustic basslines writhe throughout “Pool Beneath the Pond,” and “Tale From Black,” sounding like a more ominous Gorillaz or Super Furry Animals.  The sense of whimsy and kooky fun that is found in other British bands that dabble in electronics has been eliminated in Tunng and replaced with foreboding and a sense of betrayal.  The whole Renaissance Troubadour influence, leading to cartoonish lyrics like “Thou art not Satan’s girl,” should be scaled back a bit next time out.  Tunng are at their best only briefly evoking the past, plowing over the bones of the dead music with digital editing software.

If you want to call this folk music, run to your nearest folk music festival with people who act like extras from A Mighty Wind, and play them “Kinki Vans,” a song bursting with off-kilter electronic glitches and partially played guitar note samples looped to a gorgeous stutter.  Then watch that folkie turn white as a ghost with the realization that instruments with extension cords were involved in the making of the purported folk music.  This is for the sleepy eyed indie kids; it takes their Jose Gonzalez EPs and mashes them together with their copies of Four Tet’s Rounds on vinyl.