Mina Tindle - Taranta Review

In any given year, you don't have to look far for examples of the American imagination's eternal fascination with the French chanteuse. "Mad Men"'s most memorable moment this season had Anglophiles everywhere humming along with the coquettish, yé-yé ditty "Zou Bisou Bisou"; Wes Anderson's forthcoming Moonrise Kingdom uses the music of Francoise Hardy to conjure the blissful aura of young love; and then there was that time last week when the tidal wave of search results that came when you typed "Jane Birkin looking cool in a boatneck" into Tumblr made your browser crash. Still, 28-year-old Parisian-born singer-songwriter Mina Tindle reminds us that the moss is always greener on the other side of the pond. As a teen, Tindle idolized Chan Marshall (she cites the first time she heard Cat Power's simmering cover of "Satisfaction" as a formative musical moment), spent some time living as an ex-pat in Brooklyn, and later found inspiration in the fluttering pop of Leslie Feist. More of a folksy sophisticate than ye-ye throwback, Tindle's sweetly languid cover of "Be My Baby" that made the internet rounds leading up to the release of her debut LP Taranta sounded like a piece of bubblegum dissolving in rosewater.

Tindle got the name Taranta from a sensual and frantic old Italian folk dance that celebrates mad women, specifically those whose madness was induced by a spider's bite. Apart from its lack of arachnid references, it's a relatively apt title, as Tindle sets out to animate her tracks' refined pop structures with the leaping, kinetic energy of movement and dance. It works to great effect on "Too Loud", a song about the fatigue of wanderlust that begins with the gentle but antsy plinks of a toy piano, like a music box in fast motion. "Abroad or at home/ I feel lost," she sings, her vocals lilting and agile as the track's momentum gathers, "But if he called my name, just took my name/ Then I would stop my travels." The single "To Carry Many Small Things" has a similar energy, but it trades with the breathlessness of "Too Loud" for an assertion of cool control; both songs have the feel of a pop-foxtrot, and on "To Carry Many Small Things" she takes the lead with flair. Still, chorus reveals a nagging desire to fall out of step and into the blissful chaos of love: "If I fall/ Would you fall with me?"...full text When the French folk-pop singer Mina Tindle supported fellow Gallic artist Camille at the Barbican recently, you could tell the lesser known musician had fairly slayed the audience, when before her final song, someone shouted out for Tindle to introduce herself (it may have been a savvy employee of her record label, mind you, but still...).

With an air of mild embarrassment she did indeed tell the audience her name - they cheered loudly; job done. And she’ll likely be met with the same sort of approval following the release of her debut album Taranta - which arrives on the French label Believe next week. Listen to a preview stream of it in the box on the left.

Following in the line of artful leftfield pop from the likes of Feist, Taranta is a lovely confident 14 track record. Made with the help of JP Nataf, the former lead singer of French band The Innocents, Tindle flits effortlessly from French to English lyrics, from sparse folk songs on a single guitar to expansive pop songs with jazzy inflections. There’s much to admire.

As per Holly Williams’ review for the Independent of Camille’s performance at the aforementioned gig, occasionally there is a slight excess of manic pixie dream girl tweeness but equally this is a minor quibble. Taranta is a fine debut effort. Tindle might be fielding requests to introduce herself for a while yet....full text