Tristan and the Troubadours

And so T&TT cruise to their second Demo Of The Month award, so far ahead of this month’s pack there’s time for them to enjoy a lazy picnic in a meadow not far from the finishing line. Which is appropriate since listening to this new demo makes us think of summer and sunshine and happy, carefree days and being young. They’re proof positive you can make clever, ambitious pop without going all proggy and epic. Opening track ‘This Is, To Be’ initially feels a bit more grown up, less breathless than their previous outing, and with its swirling synths and rumbling, teasing atmosphere does a grand job of reigning in the tension until you expect it all to explode. Except it doesn’t, it pauses for breath then dinks off playfully, balancing between sweet natured post-punk and bubbling synth-pop. ‘Lamplight’ is closer to what we expect from the band, a violin and electric piano-led shimmy full of keening naivety and an airy sense of springtime romance. Such breeziness comes to full bloom on ‘Tapes & Tapes’, possibly a tribute to the band of the same name, with boy-girl harmonies and the potential to turn into the theme to Sesame Street at one point. A shadow falls across the end of the demo with the darker ‘3 Studies For Fingers’, the violin circling like a murder of crows over a militant melody that eventually
spirals into a vicious, fizzing finale. Tristan & The Troubadours are quite simply a superb
pop band, and they’re still so young it fair makes you dizzy thinking about their potential.
- Nightshift Music Magazine, Feb. 09

Short and really rather sweet is the Tristan & The Troubadours way, here managing to compact myriad cute pop ideas into two-and-a-half-minute bite-size chunks, showing a good few of this month’s other contenders
how easy it can be. From the opening piano and synth clamour of ‘Crows & Doves’, with its breathless vocals and fidgety delicacy, they’re on a winner – something we could never have predicted when we consigned
them to the Demo Dumper a couple of years back (when the poor ickle lambkins were only about 14 years old – and what bastards we feel about that now). They’ve got a great mix of fluffy jangle-pop naivety and something more virulent and dark-minded from the gloomier side of New York’s musical underground, the scraping violin in particular adding a menace to songs like ‘Venice Ghosts’ and ‘K Mono’. Sometimes
they sound like they’re going to launch into a segment of ‘Tubular Bells’, at others they’re deceptively propulsive, a haphazard but fun mix of throwaway guitar squalls, whispered female backing vocals, untidy funk and jumbled beats, seemingly held together by sellotape and determination. They swirl like a gentle snow blizzard and tell you more about the secrets of pop music with every half-thought-out scurrying left turn than all the earnest singer-songwriters here could muster in an aeon of ball-aching emoting.
- Nightshift Music Magazine Jul. 2008