Slim Twig - A Hound at the Hem

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 18 / 1 / 2015

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Review

Slim Twig is the guise of Toronto native Max Turnbull, who incidentally looks like he could be the illegitimate child of snooker player Jimmy White. ‘A Hound at the Hem’ has been given the distinguished musical stamp of being released om DFA Records, which is in no small part what lured me at first. As such, it’s only fair to admit that I had some pretty lazy preconceptions of what this album would sound like. Please consider those lacklustre preconceptions well and truly smashed to pieces on the floor, cleared up with a dust pan and brush, put in the bin and also hoovered up to make sure every little last bit was taken care of. Hip electro leaning indie music is what I think it’s fair to say most folk would think of when considering DFA Records output. Well, this ain’t that. While Slim Twig may be planted firmly in the ‘indie’ camp, ‘A Hound at the Hem’ is by no means predictable. This is more the sort of music that you would associate with a Tim Burton film rather than the banging tween anthems of the kind that you would find the latest series of ‘Skins’. ‘A Hound at the Hem’ took me quite a few listens to get my head round and also to get into. At first I felt this was more the sort of music that you would find on a Kasabian B-side than Scott Walker inspired, but I can testify to the ‘sticking with it’ approach. Eventually, once you get past the low vocals and swirling and repetitive keys/organs/piano. you get through the hazy fog and start to see something completely different. It’s like being led through a slightly intimidating forest in the dark, and then being handed a pair of night vision goggles that enable you to witness David Bowie and Nick Cave having a musical duel. To draw other comparisons, ‘Shroud by the Sheetful’ and ‘Hover on a Sliver’ give off a Horrors vibe while ‘Maintain The Charade’ recalls the Rolling Stones. There are pop hooks woven so tightly into this album that it really takes some dedication to get into them, but once you do there’s no turning back.

Track Listing:-

1 Heavy Splendour
2 Clerical Collar
3 Widow, Were You Younger
4 Shroud By the Sheetful
5 All This Wanting
6 Hover On a Sliver
7 Maintain the Charade
8 Blonde Ascending (Come Into the Cl

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/officialslimt
https://twitter.com/twigoftoronto?lang

Label Links:-

http://www.dfarecords.com/
http://store.dfarecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/dfarecords
https://twitter.com/dfarecords
http://dfa-records.tumblr.com/
http://dfarecords.bandcamp.com/