Diagrams - Diagrams

Thu 22nd Sep, 2011 in Music Reviews

English sci-fi folk outfit Tunng somehow found a utopic middle ground between electronic music and folk song writing. Their gentle, sepia toned robotics was led by Sam Genders and his new project is Diagrams. His self-titled EP is a rich, engaging release that may not be a brave new endeavour for Genders artistically, but it still offers a promising series of songs in a (sorta) new direction that showcase his uncanny ability to wield alien elements and have them all get along famously.

The EP’s five tracks are arranged with patience and assurance, with Genders carefully fitting the components together with a keen ear. Each sound fits snugly into, next to, over or under their neighbours. It’s not an exercise in texture more than it’s an exercise in finding the right sounds. Genders is interested (as he always has been) in a sound that excites feelings of visceral warmth and still rewards intellectual curiosity. He uses sunny chord progressions and gentle acoustic guitar work to create the skeleton of a lively pastoral folk song, but then layers percussion and vocals over the top (rather than underneath) in intricate mechanical patterns that are as beautiful as they are fascinating.

This process never becomes impenetrable. Each song can easily be teased apart to appreciate each element and even encourages it. Antelopes has a playful giddiness to it as the riffs and drum patterns tumble over themselves jostling for space like kids on a playground. A light string section sways and bends behind everything and his harmonies bathe in the artificial sunshine he’s created. There’s a wonderful conversation going on between his instruments but it never becomes overwhelmed with politics or religion – it’s all just light chit chat between old friends.

Hills starts out as a rubber band boogie before kicking out a nice, cavernous, garbage-pile, rag-time funk number. The chubby tubas plod along with big flat feet beside a looping guitar while a crisp crash cymbal keeps a syncopated rhythm over the top. It’s an organised mess that’s just on the right side of dirty and feeds off itself as it goes.

Closing track Icebreakers is a beautiful ballad conjuring snowy images of winter at night, perhaps along some distant coast, and his opaque references to different seasons, birds and vampires are perhaps the abstract dreams of a restless sleeper somewhere in a small cabin. The EP fades out with a prolonged recording of rain and wind quietly besieging a window pane. The effect is quite powerful, and the feeling of comfort it stirs is so complete it almost eclipses the music preceding it.

Diagrams is a confident release. Genders didn’t feel the need to record an entire album; he simply wanted to offer a few songs to let people know what he’s up to. Given an extra half dozen songs it could really stretch out into something special, but in the meantime this deserves your attention.