RIPPLES AND SWELLS

One of their LastFM tags is “fusion”. I won’t argue here, because it’s pretty true!

What do you think about Post-Rock? Dark music, played by acoustic instruments, long melancholic tracks with layered guitars and lengthy climaxes, blah-blah-blah…TUNA LAGUNA is nothing short of anything like it. If Post-Rock has drawn it’s main influence from Indie Rock, TL did that with fusion and Canterbury scene music. Post-Canterbury? You bet! Another attempt to describe band’s stuff could be this: if acid-jazz, there should be acid-fusion. Or acid dub-Canterbury. Or post-funk. No, I ain’t on acid myself now :)

TUNA LAGUNA have their unique sound – sometimes they sound like a James Bond score, with all these vibrato guitars and analogue organs, but background is usually powerful rhythm-section, almost electronic-sounding, as if taken directly from RED SNAPPER or 65DAYSOFSTATIC. Got the mixture? Add hella catchy melodies as well and a huge dose of humour and take away darkness, long tracks and other Post-Rock clichés. This is quite another thing, dude. Another beautiful thing concerning TL is they have plenty of tracks available for free download (on their LastFM page, for instance), like brilliant “My Lunar Boots”, and this opportunity would speak better than me about their music. Despite some mainstream/easy-listening approach, this groovy stuff deserves to be listened and appreciated. Highly recommended.

TUNA LAGUNA were a rather large six piece Post-Rock band with two guitarists, two keyboardists, along with bass and drums. This is their second and perhaps final release from 2007. We get close to 50 minutes of music over ten tracks. This is a fairly poppy all instrumental album with bright sounding keys and synths at times. I just didn't get a very good first impression but as usual repeated listens change some of that. There is a guest playing trombone on "Tidal Eddies" which is my favourite song on here. I wish there was more trombone on this. Probably the first time I've uttered those words.

"My Lunar Boots" is the six minute opener that is a great example of how bright and poppy this album sounds. Happy is the word here. "Feather Beats" and "Barry On Safari" are energetic and punchy. "On To Tarmac" is rather funky while the one heavy track is aptly titled "Arrival Of The Rhino" with those crazy opening synths. We get a good closer called "That's Where We're At" with some excellent drumming. Some reference THE SAMUEL JACKSON FIVE which I do get, they were contemporaries, but man I much prefer THE SAMUEL JACKSON FIVE, and that's my "go to" for happy Post Rock.