Folktronica - Tunng

[SpondonBassed]

Woodcat

Hustle

Dark Heart

YT Search "Tunng"

I was delighted to hear Tunng getting exposure on BBC 6music recently with Dark Heart.

I became aware of the music when I pursued a musical bed from Chris Hawkins' early morning show some years back.  He was using a short loop taken from a track on the album Comments of the Inner Chorus.  It was such a subtle hook.  It was just a banjo being plucked in a tick-tock fashion for eight bars on repeat.  Someone else had been hooked by this musical bed because they had written in to ask where Chris had taken the clip from.

When he gave the name of the album, I wrote it down immediately.  I was in bed trying to beat insomnia by using 6music as a soother.  It was one of those surreal night time things where your mind is somewhere between awareness and sleep.  I must have fallen asleep right after I put the notepad down by the bedside because I woke a couple of hours later to find my note.

Result!  Often I have flashes of inspiration or get little musical ideas in that gap between being asleep and waking up.  It is difficult to retain a clear memory of that unless you keep a notepad by the bed.  I believe there is a high tech recording device that stimulates the brain in the near sleep phase just to harvest some of these creative flashes of the human brain but that is another topic altogether.

I bought the CD.  It was interesting.  There was only one track that, by itself, you could call potentially commercial (IMHO).  That was Woodcat.  The BBC later used it as a bed for television promotions.  The hooky bit that had been going around in my head for days was hidden in one of the other tracks.  I listened to the whole album a couple of times.  Then I would pull it out just for Woodcat every so often.  After I'd played the track enough to have it spin in my memory on demand, so to speak, the disc stopped on the shelf gathering dust until this year when I heard Tunng getting airplay in their own right.

There is a Derbyshire connection with one of the members.  I believe he went to London to find the current line up.  Beyond that I know little of them.

Folktronica is genre that I now have on my shortlist of genres to have on in my workshop as background to my labours.  I hope some of you find this quirky band's music interesting too.

Edited September 14, 2018 by SpondonBassed

[bassbiscuits]

Yep Tunng are cool. I saw them live a couple of times over the years in a long-gone event called the Big Session which was on Leicester. 

Folktronica is about right! They'd gone off my radar a bit but I must check them out again. 

[Barking Spiders]

Yep, I've seen em live a couple of times and they're not bad. Lau are another good outfit mashing up folk with electronics

[bassbiscuits]

6 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Yep, I've seen em live a couple of times and they're not bad. Lau are another good outfit mashing up folk with electronics

I need to check out Lau. Isn't Kris Drever their guitarist? I've got some of his solo stuff and it's great. Come to think of it I saw him live at the Big Session too. I remember he had a lovely fingerpicking guitar sound.