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 tunng interview and session
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Folk law. It makes perfect sense that the promo clip accompanying experimental folk collective Tunng’s latest single, Bullets, finds guitarist Sam Genders singing from within a bundle of junk spinning aimlessly in deep space. After all, their music – a sprawling but tender mess of warm human folk-song and fractured, deftly leftfield electronica (and many other elements between) – is an accumulation of ideas and inspirations and odd musical instruments they’ve discovered along the way. Sam admits, however, that he lost sight of the metaphor a little while filming the video. “It was such a surreal situation,” he laughs. “Sitting in this agonising yoga position under a pile of junk, with four other people crammed in alongside me operating the ‘costume’. The space was half the size of a telephone box… All I could think about was keeping my head in the correct position, and getting the lyrics right when the cameras rolled.” Discomfort isn’t a feeling Genders typically relates to Tunng. Since forming the group in 2003 with producer Mike Lindsay, their ongoing development, from bedroom project to dynamic six-piece live prospect, has been a most natural thing. “A mate played me this demo, Skunkbox, that Mike had made,” remembers Sam. “I’d never heard electronic music that felt so organic before, and asked Mike to produce a demo for me, because I loved the sounds he was using. I’ve never clicked with another musician like I have with Mike: at all times, one of us has an idea that’ll spark the other’s creativity.”  The music they’ve since made as Tunng (three albums’ worth to date) is unique in its amalgamation of acoustic and digital instrumentation, though they’re spiritually aligned with the loose-but-burgeoning Folktronica movement. Forty years ago, folkies bellowed “Judas!” at Bob Dylan when he plugged in his electric guitar, but Sam says that computer technology has only helped make this a truly “folk” music again. “For about £500 you can get yourself a little studio set-up and start recording,” he explains. “It’s now possible to make albums without a record deal and gobs of money, and that’s what a lot of people are doing, they’re doing it all for themselves.” Creative freedom is the key to Tunng’s music, afforded by this new technology, and Lindsay’s dextrous skill in using it. “Mike’s so great in the studio,” Sam says. “We all feel we can bring any wild idea in, any odd instrument we want to play, make any noise we want, and we know he’s there in the middle, turning that chaos into a symphony… It’s a very liberating feeling!”
Stevie Chick
Tunng – Good Arrows, out now on Full Time Hobby.
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 green man 05video sessions  tunngalbum review  tunngalbum review  folk offalbum review
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