Diagrams, Black Light (Full Time Hobby) ****; Tunng, This Is Tunng…Live From The BBC (Full Time Hobby) **** (From York Press)

Diagrams, Black Light (Full Time Hobby) ****; Tunng, This Is Tunng…Live From The BBC (Full Time Hobby) ****

12:09pm Friday 27th January 2012 in CD reviews By Charles Hutchinson

DIAGRAMS is what happened next to Sam Genders when he forked off the experimental folk path laid down by Tunng.

It was a dark period, one where an insecure, unhappy Genders read psychology and self-help books and worked in an inner-city primary school for three years in pursuit of “genuinely enjoying life”.

Hence the title of his comeback album; he has gone from black to light (although he keeps the books in a brown paper bag under the kitchen sink), and the resulting nine-track comeback is an out-and-out pop record in the Eighties’ mode, electronic rather than acoustic, clean and minimalist, not lo-fi and misty.

“It’s quite precise and angular in places, so Diagrams felt perfect,” says Genders. Good choice.

The Beta Band’s Steve Mason, Sufjan Stevens and Hot Chip have travelled this way before, and devotees of Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys will be even more enamoured.

His former band’s album of live sessions for the Beeb spans 2005 to 2010, stretching back to his time in the Tunng fold. Intimate, warm, improvised, these 11 tracks serve as a primer for Tunng’s yearning, unpredictable, beautiful song craft, and their spell-binding way with found sounds and filtered effects.

Tamatant Tilay, from their union with desert bluesman Tinariwen, is a stand-out, while their blissful revamp of Blue Pearl’s Naked In The Rain covers itself in ecstasy.