Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Tuung - Komedia
Over the course of 3 acclaimed albums, Tunng have succeeded where many before them have failed, creating a distinctive and cohesive sound that combines both acoustic instruments and synthesised textures. On record these disparate sounds are skilfully and often imperceptibly merged. Live, however, this marriage wasn’t quite so successful.
Their whirring, skittering drums frequently felt disembodied and alien, clipped vocal samples sat too loudly in the mix - so often as to be downright intrusive - and some of the subtle sonics of the recorded versions were replicated with some fairly predictable preset synth sounds, destroying much of the character they gave the songs in the first place.
My attention wandered too during the more repetitive material which was tied to an all too formulaic pattern: Skeletal arpeggios were layered like pseudo-sampled loops whilst the four vocalists embellished in close harmony. The overall result little more than drab and sketchy folky mantras.
Their more uptempo material faired far better though. When underpinned by a gentle 4/4 chug, Tunng evoked the insistent thrum of a distant rave over the horizon – albeit one emanating from the Acoustic tent rather than the Dance tent. When this was blended with a bit with a dash of drama the results were startling; ‘Take’ off latest album ‘Good Arrows’ came at you all stalking and sinister, like some distant cousin of Orbital’s ‘The Box’.
Combining the plaintive, austere and celebratory across the set overall made for a satisfying, well rounded show and playing up to their strong Brighton ties, it didn’t take much to win over the partisan crowd who gamely clapped along with the band before whooping and hollering for more.
posted by: Jim Brackpool @ 10:20 PM
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