fatandconfused

Tilly And The Wall – Bottoms of Barrells (Moshi Moshi)

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a band that claim to have a tap dancer as an alternative to a drummer may be ever so slightly saturated in novelty, you’d be wrong but you’d be forgiven. You see Tilly and the Wall have not only master the world of pop but also the art of performing, the art of looking like a bunch of unlikely’s, girl who look more classically pretty than the average lofi tap dancing three part harmony band you find every now and again stumbling into your hearts from the depths of America, a singer who at times sounds just like Conor Oberst equally as much as he looks like early nineties Green Peace protester swampy with a haircut so bizarre he’d even look out of place on The Salon set, yet the music is uplifting and wondrous occasionally breaking into shouts of euphoric joy “Let us be free!” on Sing Songs Along, “I want to know everything about you…what makes you feel alive” on Black and Blue occasionally reminiscent of the long time absent (at least it feels a long time ) Architecture in Helsinki. The live show is better than a trip to the circus, coming across like a more talented Pipettes with shorter skirts and tunes to die for. Urgency joins the aforementioned Black and Blue and Sing Songs Along as full on blasts of multicoloured multi vocal power pop, Rainbows like Hefner if they weren’t so broken hearted, if they’d listened to more New Pornographers records, literally begging you to clap your hands and dance like it’s the best day of your life on repeat. Coughing Colours, Lost Girls and the lovely slow disco of The Freest Man show they have more depth with slow songs of tragedy laced with hope amongst bitterness and regret. “this boy I know he has a heart of glass/ it is gold inside but it has crystallized/ it is beautiful but then its tragedy/ its hard to hold without shattering…but this boy I know he is pure of soul/ he just gets lost sometimes in his chemicals/ under a coat of night it’s so so comforting” Given the chance I think Tilly and the Wall might just charm you in to making them your new favourite band.

www.myspace.com/tillyandthewall
www.myspace.com/moshimoshirecords

Frida Hyvönen – Until Death Comes (Secretly Canadian)

Like music designed for adverts, poor quality Super8 film, flickering and faster than real time, a girl dressed in a fairy outfit, shiny objects and flowing streams, bubbling and foaming. Frida Hyvönen’s The Modern is quite possibly the finest and most instantly adorable song you’ll hear in a while, the kind of song you put on repeat again and again yet fail to get bored by, at least not for the first two hundred listens.

Elsewhere the album follows a similar formula whilst never quite hitting the same peak songs like I Drive My Friend & Djuna! (I didn’t make it through the night/ I got into a fight and was hit by a man) still carry the wondrous almost childlike simplicity of two chords being banged away on a cheap piano giving little thought to technique or complexity. At times its Milk Eyed Mender era Joanna with a piano in place of a harp maybe Isobel Campbell or Joan as Police Woman in places or Regina Spektor if she was half as good as people make out. The exception to the rule where a full band joins her is a beautiful stomping motown sixties masterpiece Come Another Night in which a steady mix of Belle and Sebastian, The Concretes, Petula Clark and Sandie Shaw meet on stage with the simple task of making everyone in the room dance.

www.secretlycanadian.com
www.myspace.com/fridahyvonen

Master Solo – Dance Hall Music/Pop (Hungry Audio)

So here arrives Master Solo an oddball amongst the normal treats we receive from slutty pup, firmly rooted in barn dancing territory this is the kind of thing that would have people dancing away without a second thought if we didn’t live in such a self conscious society. “Yeah we’re gonna get things moving/ swing it side to siiiiiide…I envision those old dancehalls/ with curtains and mirrorballs/ swinging round and getting down to rock and roll/ I guess thing haven’t changed at all… … … … or have they?” A band unashamed to be unfashionable and at the same time producing something some wonderfully heart-warming and uplifting and ever so slightly bitter as the music stops “I guess things haven’t changed at all… … … … or maybe they have!” For fans of The Broken Family Band and Muleskinner Jones.

Go get your hands on this and dance away, checked shirts and cowboy boots not mandatory but perhaps advisable.
www.myspace.com/mastersolo
www.myspace.com/hungryaudiorecords