No girls or tambourines among these four Aussies that go under the name Tambourine Girls on their debut album. I’m sure that a girl or two on additional vocals and instruments might have given them another dimension, but tambourines are definitely not missed. Their guitar drive very much compensates for it. But, luckily, it is just not guitars or a sound with a single dimension the makes this band sound good. Being unfamiliar with the band (it is their debut, after all), the first thing you check is the producer. And there lies the indication of what you can expect - Tim Whitten, who produced the album, also produced Powderfinger, Hoodoo Gurus, and The Go-Betweens. And you do hear traces of all three. But then, even that is not the full musical story.
It is obvious that these guys, particularly main man, and songwriter Simon Relf have quite a few sounds in their ears, vocals, and fingers. You just don’t come with something so close to sounding like a combination between Wilco and Oasis in one song just like that (Song For Gerard), which near its end has a bridge that takes them (and listeners) somewhere completely different and then in a next song, take us on a early Seventies Beach Boys ride (Watching The World). Or, you just simply don’t name one of your songs Townes Van Zandt just like that (a great ballad, by the way). What is quite astounding is also the fact that Relf says that the album was intentionally recorded with very little rehearsal, as Relf says he wanted to “catch the feeling of the band discovering the music,” adding that one track (and you can’t really discern which one) was done in one take.
This approach does show an element of spontaneity and the idea of what the band might sound like live (good!), but there are now raw patches to be heard. So if Relf wanted the band to discover the music in a right way, they definitely did. What that produced is an inspired album with not a dull moment to be heard. Expect greater things from these guys, whether they bring the tambourines in or not.
