Review Summary: Love You All Over with Lots of Tunng (Again)
Tunng started out in the mid 2000s sounding a little like the English version of Animal Collective, their naturalistic ‘folktronica’ conjuring pictures of village life, sun dappled woods, snuffling hedgehogs and gurgling brooks. Intriguingly they couldn’t help but also channel some history in their folk sound, perhaps even hinting at the pagan heritage of their homeland at times; there was a slither of ‘The Wicker Man’ darkness lurking in the mix.
After a five year hiatus they returned in 2018 with a matured approach on ‘Songs You Make at Night’, and an arthouse type of influence continued into the accidentally perfectly timed study on death that was ‘…DEAD CLUB’, landing in the middle of a pandemic. The morbid spoken word explorations and themes of coming to terms with our finite lifespan resonated all the deeper as whole populations entered lockdown.
‘Love You All Over Again’ isn’t as thematically focused or as tightly wound in general as its predecessor and that’s a relief in some ways; this time the delicate pitter-patter sing-songy, almost nursery rhyme’ish, vocals are matched with lighter hued and more overtly playful musical backdrops. The looping vocal lines and arrangements remain the Tunng trademark, which is reassuring, and they are deployed with such time-honed skill they quickly make ‘Love You…’ an irresistible blurring, blending hypnotic triumph.
