Inthe first five seconds of Tunng’s debut U.S. release, the group’sintentions are made perfectly clear by a vocal and acoustic guitarsample that’s time stretched and hacked into an intro. This is cut andsliced, deformed and reconstructed folk music, and it’s wonderful.Ace Fu
Mother’s Daughter and Other Songs is finally getting a statesiderelease courtesy of Ace Fu, and I’m glad because up until now, I’dnever heard of Tunng. I reckon the same is true for many folks on theseshores, but that should all change soon because Tunng taps into one ofthose inevitable sounds of the moment: electronic-tinged folk. Foryears, laptoppers have been contently twiddling away making non-songswith equipment that excels with experimentation and diversion. Recently,though, those same tools capable of so many distracting tangents havebeen used to add a fresh edge to tried-and-true songwriting.
Tunngis perhaps the best example of the balance between electronic tweakingand simple singing and strumming. The songs here are full of hooks andthey are perfectly built around traditional melodies and capablesinging, but the added layer of electronic beats, effects, andmanipulations make the songs something else altogether. I could easilyimagine hearing this record without all of the digital bits and notthinking much of it, but because those pieces make up part of thepuzzle of Tunng, the songs become impossible to ignore. And because thetwo sides of the Tunng’s sound are brilliantly dancing together ratherthan stepping on each others’ toes, none of it ever feels like agimmick or a tack-on.
I’ve never been a huge fan of folk music,probably because it seemed ancient and irrelevant to me during thoseyears when I was finding things that I liked on my own. It was alreadyolder and fussier than the music my parents liked, even, so I neverdeveloped a taste. On any night in any town, I can walk into a coffeeshop or bookstore or small club and probably find someone plowingthrough heartfelt songs with a stool and a guitar, and the sheeromnipresence of that tradition tends to turn me off. Thankfully throughartists like Tunng, I’m learning that there’s a fresher approach tothose songs that can lure in cynical technophiles with a glitch, andhold us with a song. This is a great, great record, and I can onlyguess that we are about to hear a lot more like it.
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