Another Form of Relief

I think when I come to look back on music in the future, it’s going to be the 1990s that I’m going to get most nostalgic about. Hell, I’m getting nostalgic about that era now already, so I can only assume that’s a feeling that’s going to get stronger with age. The strange thing is that I never really listened to music much in the 90s. My very first album I purchased on CD (’Feeling Strangely Fine’ by Semisonic) only dates back to 1998. I guess that’s when I started playing attention to ‘alternative’, but only in the “stuff that’s played on the radio” sense. It was another three or four years before I started seriously appreciating what was out in the years.

Five years on, and it seems like all of my absolute favourite albums date from somewhere in the mid-90s. Weezer’s ‘Pinkerton’, Pavement’s ‘Slanted & Enchanted’, Ben Folds Five’s ‘Whatever And Ever Amen’ and Belle & Sebastian’s ‘Tigermilk’ all come from that period. Even Counting Crows and Barenaked Ladies, no matter how close to the middle of the road they have drifted now, were putting out some fantastic material back then that I still love now. None of this is to dismiss ‘current’ music. I love a hell of a lot of it (this blog would be pretty hard if I didn’t), but the majority of albums that I’ve continued to play regularly beyond the first month all seem to date from before 2000. I don’t know why this is, only that it is.

Of course, by now I assume that I’ve found pretty much everything important from the past. Logically this should certainly be the case. I like and know my musical tastes on the most part, surely I would have found the relevant bands that fit that criteria from the past ten years. Every so often though, this turns out to be massively wrong and I discover a band I really should have known about earlier. All of which brings us to Tullycraft, a band I’ve only actually known for about a month now but should have known for years.

Tullycraft formed in 1995 and still exist today. In between they have experienced lineup changes and have released four albums. This is about all you need to know in a biographical sense. Musically they are right into the middle of the lovely genre that is twee pop (see ‘Twee’ with it’s chorus line of “you can keep the punk rock, ska, rap, beats / Fuck me, I’m twee”). It’s all so disarmingly sweet that you’re either going to adore this material or develop the urge to throw up upon hearing it, but hopefully it’ll be the former. Jangly guitars, pop culture references and brutally honest yet witty lyrics. How did I live under such a big rock that I had no idea these guys existed for so long?

MP3 Tullycraft - Twee (expired)
MP3 Tullycraft - Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid To Know About
MP3 Tullycraft - Josie
MP3 Tullycraft - 8 Great Ways

Tullycraft kindly make a truckload of further mp3s available on the mp3 page of their website. If anyone has any further suggestions for important indie twee pop type bands from this kind of era that I might be missing, leave a comment to let me know about them.

Tullycraft: Website || Myspace

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