The Weird & Wonderful World Of Tunng – clashmusic.com

Tunng have built one of the most unique catalogues in modern British music. Folk meets electronic, their other-worldly charms are at once permanent and traditional, but also questing, forever reaching to the unknown.
Debut album ‘Mother’s Daughter And Other Songs’ emerged from ad hoc shows around London, late night recording sessions in borrowed spaces, and endless conversation, with friendship at the heart of the band’s progress.
As it happens, Tunng are ready to toast 20 years of that release with something new – out now, ‘Love You All Over Again’ underlines their status as devoutly independent creators, working totally outside time and trend.
Tunng co-founders Sam Genders and Mike Lindsay map out the band’s unique universe in this special guide for CLASH readers.
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‘Tale From Black’
Sam: Mike was listening to a lot of English folk guitarists like Davy Graham and Bert Jansch as well as lots of non-vocal electronica from the record label next door to his studio – Expanding Records.
I turned up at the studio one day – which was under a ladies clothes shop in Soho… you literally had to walk through the back of the changing cubicle Narnia-style to reach the staircase down into the dark windowless box beneath… anyway… I turned up one day and he’d written ‘Tale From Black’ – everything apart from the lyrics and melody. I started playing about with these odd dark words inspired I think by The Wicker Man soundtrack which Mike had recently played me..and Mike loved them and that was that and I remember after that something clicked for us about the kinds of music we might be able to write together. 
Mike: I remember being completely blown away as I witnessed Sam listening to the instrumental whilst continuously scribbling down lyrics for about an hour. Then he got straight on the mic and revealed this dark twisted tale about an old woman who murders people and drains their blood, which is fed into a homemade typing machine with which she writes fantasy stories. I thought wow, who is this guy, he’s my hero!
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‘Jenny Again’
Sam: Another folk-inspired song made Tunng by Mike’s glitchy production. The songs features a character, Jenny, who crops up now and again across the Tunng catalogue – either to murder her boyfriend, swim in the Margate sea or eat an anorak and various other slightly strange past times. She represents the odd ball in all of us and the yearning for something true and lovely. 
In a slightly odd coincidence the flat we rented to have some photos taken for our last album – Songs You Make at Night -an album that featured Jenny – later turned out to belong to the actress who plays Jenny in this video. That gave us the willies for a moment or two and we had to get all pagan and throw a few slimy rocks into the sea to calm down. 
Mike: This song is a Tunng classic, always loved at festivals, which is odd considering it’s a low key murder ballad. The video by Tom Haines is a re-telling of the narrative in the song, where one brother kills the other brother, in order to get together  with that brothers wife. But the song is sung from the dead brothers point of view…   
At the time we decided we didn’t want to be in the video, but oddly the two guys in the video are kind of wonky versions of us. I think most people thought they were us for a long time…
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‘Bullets’
Sam: We weren’t sure this song was a Tunng song when we first heard it but it became one of our most successful songs and opened a lot of doors in terms of opportunities to tour and get played on the radio. We’ve had a lot of fun playing this over the years – all of us dancing badly (apart from Becky – she’s actually quite a good dancer) around the stage and the audience singing along. Fun! The sound at the start is an obscure Japanese sample that Phil found somewhere obscure…slowed down and twisted about until it sounds very obscure indeed. 
Mike: ‘Bullets’ was such a massive turning point for us. It was a big hit in france. I remember playing it for the first time live out there. It was a seated theatre show and the song had been on the radio alot in the months before the tour. We played it last and the whole audience got up from their seats and were singing and kinda screaming! I had a little tear in my eye and I felt like Johnny Cash!
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‘Hanged’
Sam: This song is the intro to our third album – ‘Comments Of The Inner Chorus’ and features Martin heavily on hang (a kind of space age steel drum) plus various shakers, rattlers and jigglers from his percussion set. Keys, teeth, bones, he’s got them all and he’s a total wizard at playing them in almost all of our songs. He’s a wonder on the misery stick (clarinet) too. 
Mike: It is what it says it is in title. A hang drum granulated and twisted into a collage of textures. It sets the scene for the woody landscape of the whole album. I love the instrumental moments on our records, They serve as tie to contemplate Sams twisted tales.
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‘Yawning Abyss’
Sam: Over the last 20 years we’ve made eight Tunng album but there’s been lots of experimenting outside of the band from Mike’s Laura Marling collaboration Lump to Sam’s Diagrams project and more. We think these excursions have probably helped to keep the creative juices fresh. Ashley is a long standing member of 90’s shoegaze stars Chapterhouse and an award-winning composer,  Becky has toured with Max Tundra and is a podcast producer and Martin has added his considerable musical talents to various other projects. This song is from Phil’s John Grant/Benge/Stephen Malinder collaboration Creep Show. 
Mike: This album is genius, the production is the dream… what a band!!
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‘Woman’
Sam: In 2020 we released an album and podcast series exploring death, dying and grief (Dead Club). It was a truly amazing, sometimes challenging and ultimately uplifting experience. We interviewed writers, scientists, palliative care workers, philosophers and people grieving and wrote the album based on our research. We collaborated with the writer Max Porter on a couple of tracks on the record – setting his spoken word pieces to music. 
Mike: This track makes me cry. Max’s voice and poetry alongside Ashleys guitar part is a powerful combination. We’re all very proud of this album and this collaboration. It feels much bigger than us.
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‘Everything Else’
Sam: In a way we’ve come full circle with the new record. Mike was keen to embrace the influences and production constraints that gave the early albums their particular flavour and we all really got into that idea. Acoustic guitars, electronics, chant vocals, clarinet, non song arrangements, no reverb, fantasy pagan lyrics. We’ve come a long way but it’s good to get back to that original flavour. 
Mike: This video by James Moore is about as nostalgic as you can get. James has known us for our whole career and also did the Hustle and Sleepwalking videos. For this one, we trawled the vaults for all the old footage from 20 years ago. Luckily there was loads as our soundman, Ian Hunter, at the time was constantly filming! Thanks Ian!  It really doesn’t feel like 20 years, but this is evidence to the contrary. Bring on the next 20!!
‘Everything Else’ is out now. Catch Tunng at the following shows:
March
5 Brighton Komedia
14 Bristol The Lantern 
15 London Omeara
17 Leeds Brudenell Social Club 
18 Nottingham Metronome 
19 Glasgow Room2
20 Hebden Bridge Trades Club 
21 Dublin Whelan’s
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