Towers – Tucan

And now for something completely different…

I didn’t make it along to the Tucan album launch at the Black Box on 21st March, now I’m really sorry I missed that. Let’s hope the troupe come back to Belfast soon. Meanwhile, in the Republic, there’s plenty of places to hear Tucan live in the coming weeks – and we’d highly recommend that.

We got a taste of what was to come from Tucan when they opened the Out to Lunch Festival at the Black Box way back on Friday 2nd January – just before their collaborators from the Booka Blues Band raised the roof. It was a blinding start to 2015. I wish I’d paid more attention to Tucan at the time but I was ‘on the door’.

This second album – ‘Towers’ – is a triumph of their skill.

Six years since the first album ‘Aliquot Strings’, Tucan has evolved into a six to eight piece ‘big band’ which allows for something quite extraordinary to flourish and flow. The addition of both brass and strings results in a multi-textured, layered sound that’s both original and orchestral.

The first and last – the alpha and omega tracks if you like – deserve special mention, but in between is a bit of a dream. Nothing is quite as it seems. ‘Towers’ is entirely instrumental, with the human voice interjecting for harmonic effect. The narrative, if there is one, lies beneath dramatic, cinematic breadth left wide open to interpretation. Hans Zimmer’s raging pace came to mind once or twice for some reason. Sigur Ros, and a few other well-known instrumental bands entered my mind, but to draw parallels would seem like treason. I have to say, I found this album uniquely pleasing.

Tracks like ‘Anthema’, ‘Pieces’ and ‘Trials’ are ambient, explorative instrumentals that subtly refuse to explain or offer understanding. Frankly, there are no descriptive labels available – this is music that is confident enough in its own skin to not go out seeking audience approval, but to welcome it in.

‘Riot Now’ is a dramatic, apocalyptic track with a barrier-breaking crescendo for good measure therein, while ‘Pieces’ is quite majestic. Intelligent orchestral manoeuvres jostle with transcendental arrangement. Other tracks – like the bittersweet ‘Trials’ and ‘As It Was’ are ambiguously melodic. Bring into that brass/string mix, a traditional Celtic energy – such as with ‘Astrofolk’ and ‘Cosmo’s Note’ – and there’s magic at work. If the cosmos has a Celtic fringe, you can visit here.

‘Towers’ opens with ‘Prelude’. Here is a distinctive retro ambience, a reminder of 1970’s American TV cop series. The imagery for the video – by Kevin McGloughlin – seems to back this up – Rubix cubes, sneakers, sharpeners, dice, a Casio calculator, twisted and surreal forms of mundane everyday items like biros, Connect 4, combs, weird winding clocks and balaclava man suggest some socio-political commentary on that era. It’s about time, perhaps.

There is a seamless, elusive quality that loops from track to track, each distinctive yet entwined. Robust, rigorous, and melodically charged – to rousing and challenging exchanges of sound, ‘Towers’ is courageously masterful, produced by Torsten Kinsella (God is an Astronaut) from his Wicklow Studios.

The last word goes to ‘Teardrop’, a cover of Massive Attack’s 1998 track – despite lacking the lyrics and characteristic haunting vocals of Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Frazer, Tucan’s mercurial version still achingly and artfully delivers that ethereal quality.

Tucan Tour Dates