Buzzin Music Blog

Tunng – …And Then We Saw Land – album review

March 1^st will see the release of a new Tunng album, …And Then We Saw Land, an apt title for the disembarkation of a band who had recently been on a journey of musical discovery with African musicians Tinariwen, as well as seeing their guitarist aid the writing on Speech Debelle’s Mercury Music Prize winning garage album Speech Therapy, projects that saw them both acclaimed and defamed.

Tunng, however, have always been representative of something like a reliable core at the heart of the movement bringing folk tradition into the 21^st century. Both hugely talented in their musicianship and in the craft of songwriting (this time without Sam Genders), they are unlike so many who lean dangerously to one side of this knife’s edge. Similarly balanced is their ability to develop the folk tradition whilst retaining so many of its crucial elements.

So does the billed Four Tet post-Steve Reid or George Harrison post-India transformation occur as predicted? No, quite frankly, and this only strengthens their position.

In fact, could songs like ‘October’, ‘Don’t Look Down Or Back’ or ‘These Winds’ , sound any more assured in their English traditions? It is as though the tour, where Tinariwen and Tunng cut and pasted their songs together was like an argument that makes each party’s resolve all the stronger.  …And Then We Saw Land is a return home stronger and more assured. It is the warmth of a fire in the English winter or the soaring emotions of a clear blue English sky.

‘Hustle’, despite the somewhat forced used of a verb with far too many connotations to ever sound quite reassured when it lands, bounces through its falling guitar runs, and becomes …And Then We Saw Land’s ‘Bricks’ or ‘Bullets’, the modern, upbeat and more outspoken Tunng. This is no bad thing, though there are a welcome nods to the group’s peak of ‘Jenny Again’, in ‘With Whiskey’.

Critics of Tunng find the electronic additions rather forced in their music. It is something that they have been doing for so long now and something that is so integral to their sound that one can no longer doubt the authenticity. What is more, this album, an attempted capture of the live experience, shows their importance to the Tunng sound.

There are very few poor moments on …And Then We Saw Land. Becky Jacobs’ new role as co-lead singer is successful and the loss of the brilliant Sam Genders (also of The Accidental) doesn’t seem to detract from the overall product.

It is also an undoubted improvement on the slightly overstated Good Arrows, and whilst it is doubtful that Comments Of The Inner Chorus shall ever be bettered, …And Then We Saw Land demonstrates the group’s assuredness whilst never tipping into brash exuberance.

The album is out on Thrill Jockey on 1^st March.

MySpace link is here.