Tinstar

tinstar

Some groups come at you accompanied by all manner of hype and sensationalism. Others arrive wrapped in gloss straight off the production assembly line, while more still are thinly disguised fronts for grizzled has-beens on the comeback trail. British trio Tinstar are none of these things and yet so much more, delivering their second album Dirty Bird directly down the middle of the musical highway with a sound that glories in the emotions of traditional songwriting while embracing the textures of modern club culture. At times bold and brash, at others restrained and reflective, Dirty Bird’s eleven songs constantly command your attention while defying easy classification. You might find yourself thinking of U2 at their grooviest, the Doors at their moodiest, Underworld at their most expressive, Morphine at their most minimal, or Coldplay at their purest. You might find yourself thinking of something else entirely – or nothing else at all.

And that’s fine with Tinstar. Together, vocalist DAVID TOMLINSON, bassist and producer TIM GORDINE, and guitarist TIM BRICHENO form one of those unpretentious, self-contained, quietly confident acts of which there never seem to be enough. The group came together in 1997 with the uncomplicated intention of seeing how their songwriting abilities might gel, whether they could collectively make music of merit. A six-song demo was passed without fanfare to two record companies; both immediately asked for the group’s signature. Naming itself after a Gary Cooper soliloquy in the movie High Noon, Tinstar chose V2, and went off to record its ten song debut, The Thrill Kisser. To the band’s delight, the brooding and infectious lead track ‘Head’ promptly took off at modern rock radio, allowing Tinstar to tour the States (with Soul Coughing among others). They also discovered that after years of strained relationships in other groups, they not only liked each other as people, but loved playing with each other as musicians.

This positive personal outlook and instinctive musical understanding infuses Dirty Bird from start to finish. “In many ways when we did the first album there was a certain lack of confidence on our part, about who we were and what we were doing,” says Dave Tomlinson. “We hadn’t done any touring before the first album, and we’ve done a lot in between. This album is evidence of that.”

“There were people playing a lot more,” echoes Gordine, “and hopefully that comes across on the record. It’s a little less computer-oriented – a little less precious sounding as a result.”

Exactly. The opening track ‘The American,’ for example, uses wailing harmonica, bluesy guitars and a swirling bass line for a twisted, cinematic view of the old “boy meets girl” chorus that mutates by song’s end into the more ominous “boy buys gun.” The title track that follows is equal parts funk and grime. The ballad ‘Lolita’ has a gospel feel, ‘Grey Hotel’ a deliberately spooky spaghetti western sound, and ‘Pacify’ – “sung quietly but menacingly,” as Gordine describes it – is an emphatic demand for personal space.

And yet, as befits a band that splits its purchasing power between doo-wop/soul retrospectives and the latest hip-hop 12″s, Tinstar are equally immersed in the world of sampling, sequencing and recycling. ‘Angel’ offers a menacing keyboard bassline and a pulsating rhythm; ‘Why Do You Love Me?’ has a perky backing track reminiscent of what was once called “indie dance,” but firmly rendered rock here by Tomlinson’s bluesy vocal wail.

And then there’s ‘Sunshine,’ the first single, which as its title suggests, emits total warmth from the jazz-tinged organ chords of its verses through its hook-infested choruses via its club-friendly rhythms. (The single will be available with various club mixes still TBA.) ‘Glimpses’ conveys a similarly epic emotional radiance.

Understandably, Tinstar see no reason to choose sides between rock and dance. “At the end of the day, we all like a good song we can sing along to,” explains Tomlinson. “But we also want something to shake your booty a little bit.”

“We do borrow and use some of the dance ethic,” says Bricheno. “But as a genre it can be very snotty and almost push people away. We’re not interested in being elitist and difficult to grab hold of. We’re saying ‘This is what we do, and we WANT you to like it.’ You don’t have to join some sort of special club to like Tinstar, and by the same token, we’re not saying we’re just a rock’n’roll band. It’s straddling both worlds, taking the best bit of what’s good about a band, and some of the better bits of what’s good about more contemporary music.”

After spending several months in a tiny room in Gordine’s apartment recording The Thrill Kisser, Tinstar built a more spacious facility of their own for Dirty Bird. (“There’s no real reason to go into a big recording studio any more,” says Gordine of the exponential quality leaps in home recording equipment over recent years). This made it easier to play in unison. “We are a unit,” says Gordine, “and the more we deal with it the more solidified and the stronger that unit becomes.”

“I know it’s traditional for a lot of bands to have a leader,” says Bricheno, “but we’ve found a way to operate on our levels, and we get the best out of it. Everybody’s open to a little bit of interference. When I plug the guitar in, everybody’s got an opinion on it, and it’s always taken on board.”

Individually and collectively, then, Tinstar strive for simplicity of purpose that focuses all attention on the one thing that ultimately matters: the song. “This record is pretty direct,” says Gordine. “It says, Here’s an emotion, and here’s a couple of chords. Hopefully we put them together in an interesting way.” On Dirty Bird that’s exactly what Tinstar have done – eleven times over.


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