Album of the Week: Tunng – And Then We Saw Land

Okay, okay, I’m aware that this has been out for a few weeks, but my planned AOTW only landed on my doorstep yesterday thanks to a particularly tardy performance by a major music retailer.

 Thankfully I have a small bundle of recent acquisitions that I can draw upon and Tunng’s fourth album is well worth a few supportive paragraphs.

Ostensibly a folk collective, Tunng have been badged up as ‘folktronica’ or ‘post folk’ seemingly because a few electronic flourishes and unconventional song structures mark them out from traditional folk stylings.

I hate pigeonholing bands just for the sake of but I have to grudgingly acknowledge those descriptions as being accurate.

We’re not talking walls of synths here, but on the likes of The Roadside, some gentle beats can give an otherwise ordinary song a bit more charm.

And charm is what much of this album is about. Lead single and opening track Hustle will make you grin from ear to grin as Mike Lindsay and Becky Jacobs trade vocals amid gentle mandolin and twinkling piano.

Only October truly leaves itself immersed in ye olde English folk and it’s all the poorer for it. It Breaks is lathered in jaunty brass and Don’t Look Down Or Back boasts a spindly guitar riff that Midlake must be wishing they’d written.

Becky Jacobs and some novel percussion

Aside from the underwhelming closer, Weekend Away, the second half of the album also has plenty going for it. These Winds is a concise finger plucked joy and Sashimi, with its naggingly familiar melody interspersed with those minimal synths, is probably the best thing here.

The bargain low price this record is on sale for, and some three quarter page reviews in major music monthlies suggests a bit of a record company push for Tunng. Maybe they think the success of Mumford and Sons shows that organic banjo-led pop can succeed in a market dominated by manufactured mediocrity? On this evidence, it would be well deserved.