Tunng Interview

It’s all happy families with folktronica band Tunng, who return after two years with a bigger sound, but without a founding member.

“Is that a new piano sound you’re using?” says Tunng front man Mike Lindsay to keyboardist Martin Smith as the band heads outside for a photo.

Even now, weeks or maybe months after the recording of their fourth album came to an end, sounds are being perfected and arrangements are being changed.

A tour is imminent and the band is busily rehearsing in a Hackney studio. That’s the fundamental difference of Tunng today - they see themselves as a complete band rather than just a collection of like-minded musicians.

And you can hear it on ‘…And Then We Saw Land’, released this month on Full Time Hobby. It’s still the beautiful blend of folk and electronica - folktronica as some genius coined it - but there’s more of a balance between musicians.

The departing of Tunng founder member Sam Genders wasn’t an emotional affair, even though he was the one with who initially put the folk in folktronica, but it gave the remaining band mates a bit of a shake up. In a way, they challenged themselves to remain at Sam’s standard, which made for what sounded like some turbulent times. The result is still very much folk, but with an edge, maybe a little more mainstream, but also packed with eccentricities that make it wonderfully original.

“Sam going didn’t have a bearing musically, but it made us think about the band, the way we play and the instruments we use,” says Mike, sipping an Earl Grey in the studio’s bustling café. “It brought us together, so the change in sound was organic. We naturally evolved. We wanted to make a bigger sounding record this time and reflect the fact that Sam had gone and we had changed. I wanted a sound that would see audiences singing along.”

And there are definitely changes. Becky Jacobs, always easy to spot as the only girl in the band, but also with a hugely distinctive voice, takes more of a centre stage on vocals. There are electric guitars, not many, but some. They’ve got a drummer. And there are layers and layers of voices, shouting at the tops of their voices, creating what Mike excitedly calls a “mega chorus”.

You can tell this is an album that symbolises a new-found freedom, not a Sam-less freedom by any means, but a sort of new excitement and experimentation. The running seafaring theme throughout ‘…And Then We Saw Land’ makes perfect sense. Tunng is a band coming to shore after a long time adrift.

It’s also a freedom from last album ‘Good Arrows’ that, while a fantastic Tunng record, had been toured since the end of 2008.

“We went to an old abandoned school in Old Street on a rainy night and got fifteen people to sing,” a smiling Mike says. “I had had ideas like that before and we decided to really experiment on this album. We’re still perfecting the songs in the studio even now the record is finished.”

This new ‘family’ feeling is partly down to the band’s other adventures over the past year or so, mainly a ten-day ‘voyage of discovery’ with Malian desert bluesmen Tinariwen. It was a tour based on just a few days’ rehearsal and communicated with a small amount of pidgin French, but it had a profound affect on Tunng.

“We joined Tinariwen just as we started having ideas for a new album,” says Becky, radio producer by day and Tunng lady by night. “It was a brilliant experience doing it with them. That’s when the album started to fall into place. As a band, the five of us have got somewhere in terms of playing together and having a good time. Playing with Tinariwen was part of that learning.”

Then there was a collaboration with Canadian hip-hopper Buck 65, which Mike says was “one of the first times we really looked at the way we played”. It means this new album doesn’t, as he puts it, feel like a “fluke”.

Add producing a bit of Mercury-winner Speech Debelle, an EP for the startling sweet Beth Jeans Houghton and composing music for a new feature film starring none other than the spectacularly infamous footballer-turned-actor Eric Cantona, and you start to wonder how Tunng managed to even find time to give this band the ‘family’ time it deserved.

“Beth is going to blow up,” Mike says, evoking images of blonde wig and guts everywhere. “She’s making her debut album with Ben Hillier of Doves, Elbow, Blur and Dépêche Mode fame and I think it’s going to be huge.” Oh!

The film, out a couple of weeks back, is bitter sweet comedy Ensemble C’est Trop, directed by Tunng fan Léa Fazer, who contacted Mike directly for the job.

“Natalie Baye finds out that her husband is having an affair and everything goes wrong from there. She gets run over by Eric Cantona and they fall in love,” says Mike, not quite threatening Mark Kermode for his job. “I jumped at the chance to work on it. I think the band had got itself into a bit of a rut and, sometimes, taking your mind off a project makes everything else work. Anyway, if someone offers you a feature film, you don’t turn it down.”

And there has been more. Guitarist Ashley Bates ditched the city for Somerset and started a real family while also rehearsing for an upcoming tour with his original band, Chapterhouse, known as one of the most influential shoegazer groups of the early-’90s. He joined the band as the drummer when he was fifteen and they’ve recently reformed for a tour of Japan that kicks off two days after Tunng come home from their European shows. Nappies and baby sick, along with catching up with mates from your teenage years, can only further add to the happy family feeling.

“I think this album is really important for us as a band,” Mike says. “I admit there were times when I thought it wasn’t going to work without Sam and there were some emotional moments. There were a lot of cooks on this record and sometimes the broth was spoiled, but we really came through the other side.”

But then, looking at Becky sitting across the café table for reassurance, he adds: “I don’t think we should go straight into making another record though. We need a bit of time apart.”

Words by Gemma Hampson

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Right Guard Presents: Off Guard Gigs at Bestival 2010
Tunng get up close and personal in the Right Guard camper van and play and exclusive acoustic version of 'Hustle' HERE and check out more of our coverage at our Off Guard Gigs hub page HERE.