« Lady Sovereign | Main | Nada Surf »

Tullycraft

Nobody listens to twee pop any more. Okay, well, maybe you'll find a little tweeness in Sufjan Steven's more precious moments, or the lush romanticism of Stars, or in the latest and greatest Belle and Sebastian, but I'm thinking of a different indie pop beast. The kind that's hopped up on pixie stix, played by cute boys and girls with tiny voices, rough-hewn at the edges, but hyper and endearing and unpretentious. Who cares if the voices are slightly out of tune and they can barely play their guitars when there's a lot of hollering and they've got choruses that jackhammer into your brain?

But I confess that even myself, a former Elephant 6 devotee, have left my Apples in Stereo and Minders albums sit, dusty, and unloved up on the shelf in favor of more recent, hipper trends: post-punk, indie-disco, dance-punk, alt-country, a host of gloomy singer-songwriters and all of those damn Canadian hippie cult bands. You can blame Jeff Mangum for going into hiding or Beulah for breaking up or the kids, those damn kids, for having an attention span that's only a single remix long.

Heavenly and Talulah Gosh, I have forsaken you. Aislers Set, I'm sorry. Ladybug Transistor, please forgive me. But there is still hope; my faith in twee pop has been resuscitated by bands like Voxtrot, Bishop Allen, and, finally, the return of the glorious Tullycraft with Disenchanted Hearts Unite. What used to be sloppy is not slightly less sloppy, but the lyrics are still wonderfully snarky, and the current configuration of band members shows a polish not found on earlier releases. I'm delighted to rediscover that long-forgotten pop rush of the ultra-catchy "Secretly Minnesotan" and singable "Our Days in Kansas." Never has the phrase "disco bloodbath for the ages" sounded quite so sweet. Shake the songs too hard, and joyful hooks will come tumbling out. And let's not forget the back catalog. The jangly "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid to Know About" is a cult classic: chock full of references to other swoonworthy indie pop bands, it's a balm to dumped indie boys across the world. And the refrain of "Twee" is as infectious as it is sharp and self-affirming. Smile, it's Tullycraft! You can keep your punk rock, ska, rap beats, and house, fuck me, I'm twee! Doot-doot-doot-do.

Tullycraft - Secretly Minnesotan
Tullycraft - Our Days in Kansas
Tullycraft - Girl About Town
Tullycraft - Knockout
Tullycraft - Twee
Tullycraft - Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About

The official Tullycraft site. Buy Disenchanted Hearts Unite from Amazon or iTunes Music Store.

Shadows tag: Tullycraft.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 02.21.06 at 12:27 AM

Comments

Comments are now closed for this entry.

Recent Comments

What This Is
See You in the Pit is an MP3 blog exclusively featuring artists who will be playing the SXSW Music Festival, because the best way to learn about music is to hear it. This weblog will self destruct on March 22nd. You have been warned.

Queen of the Front Row is a twenty-something music fan in New York City who spends more time looking for new bands than she'd care to admit. She can usually be found watching live music in divey clubs on the Lower East Side. She loves that everybody she knows from NYC ends up in Austin for SXSW.

Little Miss Rock'n'Roll is very pissed off that the management of Emo's has repainted the ladies' loo red, masking that gloriously nasty pink paint and all that graffiti. It looks like a circle of hell now. Anyway, she'd like you to know that she's lived in Austin for nearly 12 years now and still knows all the secrets about you and that local musician you think you'd like to date.

Last Girl to the Party is always the last girl to the party...usually because she's fretting about what to wear. She has lived in Austin for 9 years, knows which bars maintain supplies of Campari and Pernod and which serve Stella Artois in those annoying goblets. She'd also like you to know that she has more shoes than Queen of the Front Row and Little Miss Rock'n'Roll combined.

Disclaimers
We are not affiliated with SXSW, any record label/bands/musicians, iTunes, Amazon, any secret government agencies, or your parents. Posts, comments, songs, and angry letters of indignation belong to those who wrote them in the first place.

MP3s for sampling purposes only and will be available only for a limited period of time. Please support the music makers; without them, SYitP does not exist. Information wants to be free, but musicians gotta eat.

This site powered by Movable Type, Squidfingers, and love.