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The Titillators — That's the Night
(Bandcamp Tin Angel no#, 2023, LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2023-09-02

That's the Night Cover art

Picture a world in which musical instruments have disappeared — suspend your disbelief and go with me — but musicians still want to make music. They scrounge any objects they come across that make interesting sounds, they construct instruments out of some of those objects, and they use their own bodies by singing and whistling. Even without the necessity of such a world, the members of The Titillators create their music in just such a fashion — for the most part, as there are a few synthesizers involved in addition to all the other stuff. Composer Ryan Driver is the one behind this house of oddness, and is responsible for one of the two defining sounds on That’s the Night. He’s made something he calls “streetsweeper bristle bass,” which provides the low frequencies and often sounds remarkably like an upright bass. The other defining sound is Thom Gill’s whistling, which provides most of the melodies. Other sounds are contributed by Tania Gill (synths) and three percussionists (Phil Melanson, D. Alex Meeks, and Nick Fraser), none of whom play any conventional percussion instruments or a drum kit. The overall result is light and airy, cheerful and quirky, and sometimes comes off like a mutated radio transmission from the 1920s. They’ve covered some old tunes on previous releases, but this time out, it’s all Driver originals. “Original” in more than one way, obviously! There are bouncy upbeat tunes like “Communication” and “Wigging Out,” and old-fashioned ballads like “Memories of Moods,” as well as quite a few things that fall in between. It’s a great credit to Driver and company that the music rises above novelty status and is genuinely interesting and entertaining even once you’re past the unconventionality of the instrumentation. In almost any context, The Titillators would be an appropriate response to the phrase, “And now for something completely different...”

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): The Titillators

More info
http://titillators.bandcamp.com/album/thats-the-night

 

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