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The Tokey Tones: Caterpillar and Butterfly

The core members of The Tokey Tones, Scott Mannion and Li-Ming Hu, are multi-instrumentalist/vocalists. Their website admits that "Scott takes a long time to say what he wants to say and Li-Ming has a self-confessed anger management problem." They were both in a late '90s Auckland band with big ideas called Polaar. I think the ambitiousness and sheer weight of those ideas contributed to Polaar's cot death, but they were beautiful as they crashed and burned. Gladly, the spectre lives on in this still-ambitious two-CD debut (each around 30 minutes). Buy one or buy both. While 'Caterpillar' is slightly more upbeat and poppy, 'Butterfly' covers the more indulgent and tangential side. This a good division of flavour, and the set succeeds on many levels - you'll be finding new layers every time you listen. It's intricate and also full of sugar-sweet poppy melodies, begging a listen. The sound palate is nicely varied with obvious sounds you'll recognise, like guitar, bass, drums, clarinet, xylophone etc. Then, you'll find yourself floating downstream on the backs of others less identifiable and more psychedelic. No fixed points of reference apart from a musically Caucasian perspective. No blues, no dub, no beats. But oddly enough, I think it's world music. There's a fragile and nicely bucolic feel to it all in an XTC-kind of way, and elements of scary slacker madness á la Pluto, Mercury Rev and Sparklehorse. Gotta mention the great artwork by Misery, too. Available on Lil' Chief Records, also home to The Brunettes. Ask for it, or rather them, at your local record shop.

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