Flaming Tunes - Flaming Tunes LP

A rare gem of meditative home recorded pop with fractured experiments along the journey.

The Flaming Tunes is the brainchild of Gareth Williams and Mary Currie with a slew of collaborators. Originally released in 1985 on a limited run of cassettes it has been revived on wax out of yet another archival black hole.

Prior to this collaboration, Williams was renowned for his contribution to psych academy punk pioneers This Heat. The group split off into various nuclei and Williams found himself in Kerala, India studying the Indian classical dance and music tradition, Kathakali. Upon his return to South London, he and Currie formulated a collection of impressive home recorded songs that meander and invite listeners into insular moments of tender expression and convincing apprehensions about the outside world.

While there are lingering elements from Williams’ previous group, there is a shift in focus from agitated polyrhythms and atonality to that of melody and repetition. Additionally their rudimentary command of sampling, tape loops, found sounds and acoustic instruments creates a net result of warm and intimate sounds that one can imagine stumbling upon a walk around an unfamiliar and surreal neighbourhood.

Freak folk and splintered psychedelia through a pop lens if you will. The subtle influences from the subcontinent avoid the tropes of overblown and bloated cultural vultural flexes. Essential listening for part-time punx, box set adult contemporary aficionados and everyone in between.
- Toto