CD: Twink - Happy Houses

Fans of British psychedelic underground music of the Sixties and Seventies need read no further. This Twink is not the drummer from The Pretty Things and The Pink Fairies who was good mates with Syd Barrett all those years ago (and who is now known as Mohammed Abdullah, incidentally).

That said, what’s going on with this Twink – Mike Langlie of Boston, Massachusetts - is oddball enough to be just as appealing, in small doses, to first-generation LSD freaks searching for something to send their brains into a spin.

Langlie’s oeuvre is music made with toys and children’s instrumentation. If you Google him whole lists of websites pop up with names such as weirdestbandintheworld.com, weirdomusic.com and similar. It’s music, then, that revels in its chirpy strangeness and makes no attempt to follow pop norms. In truth, for most it will be music to be dipped into rather than consumed en masse. The novelty value of the nursery sound wears off quickly and, if the listener is in the wrong mood, its persistent upbeat quirkiness will grate, summoning visions of being on telephone hold in some kitsch surrealist bureaucratic Hell.

Those who will enjoy it, though, are connoisseurs of the curious willing to wade through its cutesiness and pluck out candies such as the crazed Hammond bounce of “Ostrich Hop” or the sweet bell-like lullaby, “Chickaboo”. Taking old-fashioned easy-listening albums and library records as his template, Langlie and his band create something that frolics about with juvenile energy but hasn’t just been thrown together willy-nilly. It’s music that’s rich in melody and ideas. The best piece is the one minute 41 second “Interloodle” which, riding an abstract jazz bass, comes on like the soundtrack to a horror film about ornate clockwork animals coming to life. It is so bizarre and different that it fascinates. You wouldn’t want too much of this – on a loop for a long car journey it’d drive you mad – but as an occasional sonic palate-cleanser it’s well worth investigating.

Overleaf: Watch the video for "Close to Home"