Friday, April 16, 2010

A00-09 26. The Breeders - Title TK

Title TK (journalistic slang for "title to come") is a Breeders album, but it could just as easily be a Kim Deal solo album, as she is the only member of the band who recorded debut album Pod who also plays on this record. She wrote all but two of the songs and played all of the instruments on several of the tracks, apart from occasional help from her twin sister Kelley on extra vocals. The album was recorded over a long period of time, which partly explains why a full band was not present on all tracks.

Title TK came out nine years after their previous and most successful album Last Splash and sounds nothing like it. While Last splash was an effervescent bubbly record , Title TK is sparse and subdued. It makes little attempt to re-capture past glories, although it could be said to be similar to Pod. A lot of the credit for this subdued sound should probably go to producer Steve Albini, who would seem to be a strange choice as Kim Deal's former band, The Pixies, were famously unhappy with his production of their debut Surfer Rosa. For me, this was the first time that Albini's sparse production had actually ever made sense.

Typical of the album, would be the first track, Little Fury. It starts with a slow drum beat, then the Deal sister's near identical vocals come in (Kim first then Kelley), with an intimacy fragility that would have been unthinkable on Last Splash. It takes about a minute for the guitars to come in all raw and jagged. One guitar chugs away at chords and the other plays a simple lead riff at key points. So it continues, with a bass interlude here and cutting back just to the drums and vocals there, until the end of the track. Other tracks are more tempo, but all share the same lo-fi production values and give the impression that you are sat in the same garage as the band playing the song (even when Kim is doing everything herself).

Recommended Track: Little Fury

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