Posted on October 5, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

The Tiny Tide of the Moon

Tiny Tide is an indie band from Italy born on 2007, on the almighty bloom of the indie pop wave. Mark Zonda and Porlock attended at the show of a duo from the UK SO untalented that looked each others into the eyes and without a word decided to start a band being confident they could only would have done better than that. Since then a lot of things happened.

Porlock – the Mike Garson of the situation – still play with the band, but only in the studio, Tiny Tide has seen some changes on their components, they released some EP collaborating with the american label Vulpiano Records and many international artists live and in studio, “Girls from Ronta” and “Girlfriend”, a cover from the Mexican band “Belanova” has been aired on American (and sometimes Italian) radio stations, they are still working on their album “Febrero”.

Funny thing is that “Febrero” was not meant to be their first long playing. Whilte all the band is still busy on recording that album (under the artistic and technical production of Andrè “Stars in Coma” Brorsson from Sweden), Mark felt the urgency to share with the World another more recent work called “Moontalking”, inspired by a very lonely but pleasant cold and snowy winter.

The album (3rd release for Kingem Records) is a concept album just like Sgt. Pepper has always meant to be: a collection of songs merging one into the other, with a common feeling and theme, some fictional situations and melody reprises.

The album starts with the experimental, dark and noisy fuzzed guitars of “Left off”, an introduction with a countdown suddenly bringing to the mind David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity”, being David one of the main influences on Mark Zonda’s work. The launch lead us to the following song called “We Are Animals”, according to Mark a mock on “We Are The World“ with this Space Ace version of a Phill Collins character like musician having to reach his relevant fellow musicians on the Moon to sing a committed benefit song, when all he’s capable to do is randomly thinking at new ways human race can beat itself on pushing the World to the edge of destruction. On Mark intention the song had to cross as many pop influences and styles as possible, and beside the absence of guitar virtuosities the style of the song seems to recall some of Charlotte Hatherley“New Worlds” compositions.

“Manga Nurse” is a funny piece on a Japanese mysterious girl with some fuzz and spaced guitars and a crazy sinth, with caustic tongue twisted lyrics sang on a syncopated bass line making the song a Johnny B. Goode of the 21st Century. At least until the end, where the song seems to mix David Byrne with  Alladin Sane. The song is supported by a video collage tribute to Gainax japanimation FLCL.

Though more kin on following the path of the music that always influenced Mark feelings and imagination, Moontalking has enought space for simple, poetic and direct love indie ballads as well. That’s the case of “A Great Indie Night”, with echoes of Simon & Gartunkel and The La’s, the reprise of “Lust for Clubs” with Manuel Magnani at the violin, and the synth ballad “I Would Say”, with Stefano “Wildheart” Lanzavecchia on keyboards and a very “Gilmourish” guitar solo by Dendrix in the finale. The song was originall written on 1996 for Anna Kournikova on a sunny afternoon in just 2 hours, while now lyrics has completely changed.

The album – that sees also the collaboration of Phillip Lockwood-Holmes from LeBleu, Mike Leffe drumming on “The Smiths & The Cure”,  and the American artist Marilyn Roxie, closes with a track called FOG, almost an Iggy Pop on psych-folk sauce with poweful rogue guitars and an ocean made of odd synth waves. As on most of the previous Tiny EPs, art is provided by the brilliant hands of Naniiebim UK studio.

Let it ring on...

• Kitty Kitten Kristmas (0)
• U.N.DISCO Time (0)
• I… I will be Kingem (1)
• Out of our tiny indie (0)
• Inner City Pressure (0)