Tunabunny

‘The quartet have a ramshackle, dissonant sound that is a little early 80’s (Raincoats, Pastels) and a little early 90’s (Helium, first album Breeders), but there are some quality pop hooks among the calamity. The band just released their second album, Minima Moralia. It’s good!’ - Brooklyn Vegan

"This Athens-based band takes the concept of "post-punk" to the point where it sounds like it's actually going to fall apart right in front of you. Not in a bad way." - Maura Johnston - Village Voice

"There’s a new Tunabunny album out. If 20 people haven’t gone to their label’s website and bought a copy by the end of today (U.S. time), I’m shutting Collapse Board down. Seriously." - Everett True

- Collapse Board

The Georgia band makes scuzzy, effervescent basement pop, and was one of the bands we were most excited to see at CMJ earlier this year.

The group's latest video matches the energy and carefree power of its music. It depicts, in quick flashes and head-spinning camera twirls, band members and longtime friends Brigette Herron, Mary Jane Hassell, Chloe Tewksbury and Scott Creney goofing off in a local coffee-roasting warehouse. It's exactly the jubilant and lighthearted video you'd expect from four good friends. By the end, you'll likely want to be friends with them, too.
- NPR

"At the end of their set a suitably impressed DiS heads to the merchandise stall and buys their entire back catalogue. Yes, that good." - Drowned In Sound

It seemed to me that maybe Tunabunny's debut album was just too dense, too awkward for some pop fans. Maybe the band have been listening to that, or maybe their trajectory towards a poppier sound is all too natural, but the band's new single '(Song For My) Solar Sister' is easily the most "accessible" thing I've heard from them.

To me, this new single (out on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records) reminds me - a lot - of getting into early-ish Throwing Muses stuff whilst still at school. That slightly folks-y vocal against a lazily perfect pop backdrop. It's pretty much the finished product, really.

'(Song For My) Solar Sister' is taken from Tunabunny's forthcoming second album called 'Minima Moralia', also out on HHBTM in August. The sooner they save up some pennies and come and play in the UK, the better.

- A Layer of Chips

The Tunabunny LP, if you don't know, is a fucking piece of work, best played from start to finish LOUD, really fucking LOUD and ideally when you're alone and making plans, scheming, getting things done... that can be top secret underground bunker style or cleaning the oven or cycling up a hill in torrential unGodly rain

By all means listen with friends and dinner guests in your quaint suburban homes but BE AWARE that once this LP gets under your skin like some alien disease having a loved one cock a snook and curl a lip or raise a sarcastic eyebrow to what yr getting down to/what you've given yr heart to will mean that you will have no choice but to remove that person from your life forever... spouses, childhood sweethearts, parents, children... you may never want them in your life again if they don't absolutely GET Tunabunny.

It's that kind of a record, dig?

Tunabunny remind me a little of The Fall and Sonic Youth (around 'EVOL' and 'Sister') or the likes of The Raincoats and the Swell Maps who I quoted all the way up at the top of the page- but they're not slavish copyists- it's just a similar mindset/approach/attack/sense of mischief/sense that these things matter

Tunabunny have filled the greyer moments of my waking hours with lots of vivid incandescent colour and welcome inspirational drama as I've waded through the daily what-have-you's of my being
Tunabunny... it's July and I've been sent a press release, as one of those bloggers I must post it verbatim:

'Tunabunny is, for now, less of a criminal element that it used to be. On last year’s debut album, you had to listen closely to hear the Blondie, to hear the Abba, to hear the pop. Some people just heard noise. Some people thought it was glorious. The album received rave reviews in some unexpected places, including Everett True in Australia (‘this music makes me deliriously happy’) and a top-5 end of year placing on the BBC’s website. This spring saw a successful tour of the eastern half of the USA. Now comes ‘(Song For My) Solar Sister,’ the advance single for Minima Moralia, due out in August. The album marks an unprecedented leap, like the one that took Nirvana from Bleach to Nevermind, like Pavement from those early ep’s to Slanted & Enchanted. This year’s Tunabunny marks a shift from noise towards melody, from chaos towards structure, from indifference towards rapture, It signals a Tunabunny more pop, yet more intense; more accessible, yet more desperate; more comforting, and yet more uncomfortable. Taken with its B-side, the single tells a story; it is in conversation with itself. One side says hello to the future as the other one closes a door on the past: optimism vs. defeat, victory vs. mourning, warm guitars vs. icy synths, one lead singer vs. the other. You could conceivably keep listening, keep flipping it over and over, and still hear more details emerge, continue to still be enthralled, still attempting to decipher the mystery, to figure it out, to get the bottom of things. Not unlike life itself.'

And, dear reader, the new Tunabunny single '(Song For My) Solar Sister' is fucking amazing (swearing for emphasis), it's like an arm around your shoulder from a big sister, an arm around the shoulder when you most need one, that sort of a moment, it's got hooks (in that it has a bit in it that gets repeated that you listen out for and that makes your heart leap when it comes back- is that a hook? I'm not musical, I just jabber on about music in a breathless gushing overly earnest way, see) and it sounds like woozy summer, hot pavements and mooching purposefully with no particular place to go... doesn't that sound enticing? It clatters and crashes and the singer sings and there's backing vocals and it's a POP record, anthemic, consoling and, to these ears, irresistible.

- A Fog Of Ideas

Tunabunny are back with with a big slice of summer pop for you. Their new single which just came out on HHBTM has a hot and cool side, as all quality summer singles should have. The hot side contains (Song for My) Solar Sister, possibly the most straightforward pop song the band has recorded to date. It starts with a riff that immediately gets your attention and then adds haunting vocals and some nice bass that reminds me of both Pod era Breeders and early Helium singles. The B-side cools things down. Airport is droning groove number that hums along. It’s all melody, bass and weird theremin-like keyboard. It may not be a good indicator, but I have always found myself judging bands on the quality of their B-sides. Bands that use them to try new things, push the envelope, or just slap an amazing song on the back side because they can always have ranked as some of my favorite bands. With this new single Tunnabunny are edging themselves into my favorites category. Look for album number two this fall.

- The Finest Kiss

This music makes me deliriously happy. It clatters, it splatters, it shatters, it matters. I’ve listened to the album front to back, back to front, sideways, length ways, every which wrong ways, adored the New Order steals, the slices of unrequited Bikini Kill/Skinned Teen screaming, the tributes to the female Captain Beefheart, the way that everything falls into a split-second momentary daze before surging back off again, the retro-space age echoes, the full-on distortion which sometimes drips into a most delicious haze, the scratching trembly guitar parts, the thudding percussion, the entire chaotic splendour.

I’ve lusted after the thought of owning their ‘Don’t Trust Whitey’ flexi-seven-inch-disc of Pavement covers.
I’ve lusted after the thought of catching them live, the delirium.

--Everett True - Collapse Board