Tunng - 'And Then We Saw Land' (Full Time Hobby) 01/03/10

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Setting sail on the good ship Tunng, '...And Then We Saw Land' is the fourth album escapade from the auld Peelie faves, and as good a port as any to take stock. For what has shaped up in the pop world since Tunng's conception when folk was just another derisory four-letter word? It seems everyone's a-flutter with psyche-folk/freak-folk leanings... A Laura Marling here, a Noah & The Whale there, Stornoway and Mumford & Sons vying to be the next big thang. Devendra Banhart and his Merry Pranksters... The beardy Tunng don't trifle with such concerns. Instead they take a tour with the Taureg luminaries, Tinariwen, and shake up live performance by splicing alt-folk timbres with Malian staccato rhythms - a cutting edge apart!

Well, the glitch-folk experimentalism is upgraded to deluxe on 'ATWSL', giving the album a usp that Mike Lindsay's chum calls "Epic Folk Disco Brass Magnificent". It's a roving affair with explorations in the global village. That, and there's rollicking chorus singalongs courtesy of The Mega Chorus - a 15 strong coterie of mates and drinking buddies let loose on a recording session. Lindsay takes the helm in songwriting (co-founder Sam Genders having eloped) alongside Ben Bickerton who brings a nautical brinyness to the songs, Lindsay's production nouse, meanwhile, remains keen as ever thus the demand he engenders with Speech Debelle, Benge and Beth Jeans Houghton.

Female singer Becky Jacobs up the ante by sharing the lead vocas, taking the Brit-folk of 'It Breaks' on a merry-go-round popsicle of brass, percussion and mirth, and 'These Winds' has Jacobs able-handed a-cappella, while the swirly-sample and banjo jauntiness of the lead single 'Hustle' shimmy's the poptastic feel, and the plinky 'The Roadside' packs pop jiggery with chipper piano and drum programming. Kitchen-sink dramas abound on 'Don't Look Down Or Back' where The Mega Chorus rouse a jaunty tankard-raising sea shanty-like singalong with bierkeller bon homie.

The elegiac 'October' and 'With Whiskey', meanwhile, are the stand-outs, flavoured with vintage Tunng that references Simon & Garf and (Penguin Cafe splinter-group) Another Fine Day - the vocals of the former are twisted and sound loops raise a whirl, while the latter swoons with rhyming couplets and an Aha-like verse(!!!). On 'By Dusk They Were In The City' Mike Oldfield's reverb plates are evinced (they were left in the studio) then let rip against melodica, percussion and a Psapp-like folky polyrhythm, as 'Santiago' and 'Sashimi' have a kitschy indifference - the former with Psapp/Noah &TW retro kids-TV litenes, the latter a squiggly thrust like Tommy-era The Who tripping down the Moloko Milk Bar.

Nevertheless, the ghost of the genius Sam Genders hovers over Tunng's craftwork, and the songwriting never matches their former heights. Even the quirky voice samples are elusive and The Wicker Man inspiratons feel well and trully burnt. In it's place, there's revelry and spontaneity, an ease of mind that's like a Sunday afternoon down the tavern with the old shaggy friend, as Tunng would have it on 'Weekend Away', encouraging The Mega Chorus to chirp up "...it's only ah, weekend away...".