Tunng @ Beck’s Music Box24/2/2011

Sat 26th Feb, 2011 in Gig Reviews

There’s no denying that Beck’s Music Box has firmly established its place as one of Perth’s premier live music venues; ironic really, since it only exists for two short months of the year during the Perth International Arts Festival, after which it’s dismantled and forgotten about until the following year. The venue combines the comforts of funky couches, gourmet snacks and a well stocked bar with the ambience of twinkling fairy lights and an illuminated city vista, complimentary mosquito repellent (they thought of everything!) and dependably balmy Perth summer nights. In many ways it was the perfect setting for UK folk-experimentalists Tunng to unleash their pastoral sounds on a new audience.

“Bucolic oddness” is probably not an unfair description of the band’s sound which somehow manages to blend intimacy and domesticity with epic sweeping textures. Combining what singer/guitarist Mike Lindsay referred to as “filthy bass” via samples and electronics, with fervently picked acoustic guitars, gentle but driving drum grooves, an array of interesting effects (percussive and electronic), folky vocals and a healthy dose of whimsy gives this band its distinctive, albeit quite unusual, sound.

Making full use of their incredible percussion rig (including what appeared to be a bunch of house keys hanging on a ring which Martin Smith played with his feet) the band began the night by launching into one of its burlier tunes, Don’t Look Down or Break, from the 2010 album, And Then We Saw Land. Singer Becky Jacobs sounds better in real life than on record; her voice soaring with a rare combination of clarity and etherealness during the big group choruses. Her gold dress and orange heels didn’t really seem to match the rest of the band’s aesthetic (jeans/tshirts/akubra hat!) but her almost childlike stage presence and melodica playing more than made up for the sartorial error.

From the gentle folk pop of Hustle and Santiago to the wistful melancholy of Weekend Away most of the songs that followed were taken from their recent release, which is probably the band’s most accessible record. The hookiest tune, Sashimi combined driving acoustic guitar with chiming rhythmic grooves, making for a hypnotic combination. Take, the opening track from Good Arrows, which opens with the sounds of a hammered dulcimer, was also a highlight.

It has to be said that Tunng’s music does seem to occupy a strange place for audiences; too playful and folky for the serious avant-garde/shoegazer crowd and perhaps too experimental or inconsistent for trad-folksters. Nonetheless, there’s something refreshingly honest about folk bands in general. It could be the lack of pretension and image-consciousness (although Lindsay’s F.O.L.K t-shirt was unequivocally cool) or the naturally self-deprecating English humour (they describe their sound as “epic folk disco”) but it would be very difficult not to like this bunch of musicians.

The band’s interaction with the audience was also indicative of its good humour and theatrical bent. During the eerie ditty Tales from Black (“a song about a murderous old woman”) the members shouted ‘Freeze!’, stopping the music in its tracks and holding their positions on stage like mannequins for a good five seconds before commencing again with conviction and aplomb. It was a fun and mesmerising moment and yet another example of the band’s ability to punctuate its songs with the unexpected.

It seemed, however, that most punters at the show were there to hear the band’s best-known single, folk pop anthem Bullets, and they weren’t disappointed. With encouragement from Lindsay to join in on the ‘na, na, na’ refrain, this was the only one to get the crowd really moving and singing along. The appreciative audience called for an encore and the band returned to perform the song Woodcat, from the album Inner Chorus. A gently lilting song of love and loss, it left the lines “and we all had a lovely time” hanging in the air like an affirmation. Because we did.

Oh, and there was a guitar solo. With dive-bombs. And hammer-ons and pull- offs. And one leg on the monitor.

Bucolic oddness indeed.