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TUNNG

Tunng

Mother’s Daughter And Other Songs - Reissue

    The first Tunng album!

    Originally released in 2005 on the magnificent Static Caravan (VAN88V), this is the first time this beloved album has been available on vinyl since 2006. Lovingly restored from the original masters, re-cut in December 2020.

    Back in 2003, Sam Genders and Mike Lindsay were introduced by a mutual friend at a gig Sam was playing. Mike had a strange studio underneath a woman’s clothes shop in Soho at the time, and after some discussion, Sam asked if he could record an EP there.

    Mike agreed, and after a while played Sam some ideas he’d been working on, fusing his vision of electronica and acoustic paganistic folk music. He then asked Sam if he’d sing on one, and then another one…and then another one. The pair began to write songs together from this point, and became totally immersed in this new album project, which would later come to be known as Mother’s Daughter and Other Songs.

    Inspiration for the name “tunng” came from electronic artists Mike was into at the time – Mum, Isan, Benge. From here, the pair sent CD-Rs to labels, and Static Caravan got back immediately, signing on a handshake deal. “Tale From Black” was released on 7” in 2004 and became a favourite of John Peel’s. The album itself came out in Jan 2005 and it was from here that Tunng was made complete. Made up of friends the pair had made in London, Tunng now included Phil Winter (electronics), Ashley Bates (nylon string guitar), Becky Jacobs (vocals / melodica) and Martin Smith (sea shells, bear’s toenails, clarinet, keys). Seventeen years, a few mini world tours, a million festivals and 7 albums later the band are still making music together.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: Well well, this long awaited gem is finally here and it honestly sounds as good as the day it came out. One of the forefathers of the 'Folktronica' movement and consistently excellent to this day, this is an absolutely essential addition to any collection. It's a definite yes from me.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Mother’s Daughter
    2. People Folk
    3. Out The Window With The Window
    4. Beautiful And Light
    5. Tale From Black
    6. Song Of The Sea
    7. Kinky Vans
    8. Fair Doreen
    9. Code Breaker
    10. Surprise Me 44

    Tunng

    Tunng Presents....DEAD CLUB

      The breadth, detail and care of Tunng’s Dead Club project is a striking thing. “It’s not just a record, it’s a discussion, it’s a podcast series, it’s poetry, it’s short stories, it’s an examination,” says the band’s Mike Lindsay. Tackling the still near-untouchable subjects - grief, loss, the act of dying, where we go, what becomes of those left behind - death is a taboo beyond all others.

      Around the time of Tunng’s sixth album, 2018’s Songs You Make at Night, lyricist Sam Genders found Max Porter’s novel Grief is The Thing with Feathers, and was struck by its power. Its viscerality and rawness and rage. Its beauty and love and connection. He passed Porter’s book around his band members.

      For months the six band members discussed the subject at length. That they are such a sizeable band, diverse in opinion and perspective, proved helpful: “When all those things come together that’s what makes it Tunng,” says Genders. “And because the subject of death is so powerful for people in different ways, we talked about the kinds of issues it might bring up, that we might need to be sensitive about.”

      Firstly, Dead Club is an extraordinary record; contemplative, intimate and celebratory. It includes collaborations with Max Porter, who wrote two new pieces for the album. It draws on the research the band conducted — nods to the Wari people of Brazil who eat their dead, discussions of consciousness and memory, Genders’ visit to a death cafe in Sheffield, and the Swedish art of Death Cleaning. It touches on personal loss, fear, and humour and sorrow and love.

      “Trying to turn this whole concept into an album, into music, without it being too sombre and difficult for people to listen to, that’s been the challenge,” says Lindsay. “We wanted it to be colourful and we wanted it to be kind of uplifting. Although some of it’s a lot darker than I was imagining it originally, I think it’s a thought-provoking and emotional journey; it doesn’t make me feel sad.”

      It's also a podcast series, produced by the band’s Becky Jacobs and Sam Genders, speaking to those who work in the field of death: philosophers, scientists, frontline workers, and beyond. Philosophers Alain De Botton and A.C. Grayling discuss cultural attitudes towards death, alongside palliative care physician and author Kathryn Mannix, mentalist Derren Brown, forensic anthropologist Dame Sue Black, musician Speech Debelle, and Poetry editor of the New Yorker, Kevin Young. Samples from these discussions in turn appear on the album: Brown’s voice hovers over Fatally Human, Black considers what happens after we die on The Last Day, while on A Million Colours, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib of Tinariwen speaks of the traditions around death of the Tuareg in northern Mali.

      There were live events planned of course, collisions of music and readings and art that the band had hoped might prompt conversations about the subject among the audience. Perhaps the hope of this project is not to commandeer grief, to explain it or provide a structure for loss, but to bring a new openness to the subject.

      We no longer have the religious script we once had that helped us to deal with death, Genders notes. “And I think a lot of us are struggling to know how to behave around it.” But there are skills we can learn, conversations we can have, cultural baggage we can question, to find an approach that reflects an experience that is “inherently human”, as Genders puts it. “I think in life in general there’s something very powerful in total honesty,” he says. “In being honest about all the different ways that you experience things. Because it’s nearly always the case that you discover everyone’s got the same anxieties, and the same fears, and having the same experiences. And maybe that can be powerful.”

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: Though the idea and the creative process behind 'Dead Club' is significantly different from their usual collaborative approach, it has every bit of the alt-folk charm and bracing mix of electronic and organic instrumentation we saw in 'then We Saw Land' or the brilliant 'Good Arrows'.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Eating The Dead
      2. Death Is The New Sex
      3. SDC
      4. Three Birds
      5. A Million Colours
      6. Carry You
      7. The Last Day
      8. Tsunami
      9. Man
      10. Scared To Death
      11. Fatally Human
      12. Woman

      Fifth studio album from experimental 6-piece Tunng.

      Despite various changes in the band’s set-up - including frontman Mike Lindsay’s relocation to Iceland where he recorded last year’s acclaimed ‘Cheek Mountain Thief’ solo album - there’s a togetherness to the album. Recorded mainly in Dorset, this is the first Tunng album where all members were present at each stage of the process.

      Becky Jacobs shares lead vocals with Mike, and they are joined by an eclectic array of instruments and vintage equipment resulting in a rich, colourful record.

      TRACK LISTING

      Once
      Trip Trap
      By This
      The Village
      Bloodlines
      Follow Follow
      So Far From Here
      Embers
      Heavy Rock Warning

      Tunng

      Comments Of The Inner Chorus

        Tunng's second LP, has been eagerly awaited round these parts and they haven't let us down. Twelve more expertly crafted wonky folk songs that have been trussed up in harp strings, super-charged with electronic pulses and spliced with a sampler. Truly they embrace all the good things on offer to open minded musicians, quasi-traditional songs laced with meditative accoustic lines and a pulsing mechanic undercurrent. Tunng deftly unite numerous eccentric elements without causing chaos, plodding melodically through a fairy lit magical underground.


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