It sounds like a pagan word, recited in some forgotten Wicca rite. And like their name, Tuung’s music suitably evokes bucolic scenes with hazy alchemical magic gilding the darkened peripheries of the woods.   Full text...

A theme of fictive fantasy and metamorphosis seems to link the songs, the allure of storytelling underlined by the typewriter clicking away behind "Jenny Again" and the sampled fragments of childrens' hour telly laid over the fingerstyle guitar of "Stories". It's like Jackanory read by The Incredible String Band. Are you sitting comfortably?   Full text...

Although Tunng's style owes much to folk ancestors the Incredible String Band and Nick Drake, each track on Comments of the Inner Chorus is so packed with variant instrumental textures that the album can more often resemble the pastoral interludes of Four Tet or the Notwist. The sheer density of the group's fractured, ever-shifting productions places heavy demands on its song structures, causing the over-chirpy "Red and Green" or the ill-conceived pastiche "Stories" to crumble under their own clunky weight.  Full text...

On 'Comments of the Inner Chorus' the group have moved away from the electronica that dominated their previous work towards a more conventional song-writing approach based around regular acoustic compositions and vocals.  Full text...

Unfortunately, too many tracks here suffer from just this problem: a skilled and risky arrangement is smooshed beneath mollifying layers of voice-carrying lyrics that are sometimes adequate, but often stultifying in their sweetness.  Full text...

Tunng's second album is a disappointing follow up to ‘Mother's Daughter and Other Songs'.  Full text...