People seem not quite to have grasped it yet, as was to be seen from the poor attendance at the Tenderfoot gig at the Smekkleysa record shop last Friday (November 19th). Those who did turn up enjoyed a startling set of mellow acoustic songs, a mixture of the early Radiohead mingled with country, a blast of melodies that unfolds in your ears before it sinks down into your heart. Thanks to the double bass, maybe, which adds a certain weight to this experience. A very beautiful, very tender approach to bring music back to those who are tired of pushing it to the end of its tether.
Mind you, the Bad Taste dominated surroundings made some of the atmosphere, with all sorts of memorabilia from the “Lobster or Fame” exhibition in the corner of your eye. A manikin in a rabbit´s suit to the right and a pile of shrill 80´s-style clothes scattered on the floor in the front of “the stage” can’t help but clamor for attention.
The setting of the gig was no coincidence, of course, as Tenderfoot have recently signed a deal with Smekkleysa. After having accumulated and developed a number of songs during their two years of touring, the band have finally decided to record their first full-length album. As a live band first and foremost, Kalli, Konni, Grímsi and Helgi have recorded most of the songs on “Without Gravity” (which will be released in December) live in the studio. “The communication that takes place between the band members at a concert creates a cetrain element in our music. This would be much harder to capture when recorded step by step individually”, they explain. Thus, little or no changes at all were added to some of the songs. Others they felt they had to take a bit further, adding more complicated arrangements by working on top of this special live-recording essence of theirs.
So is this Tenderfoot’s magic potion? A bit of alternative-country, the old-fashioned way, an enchanting voice, a double bass and a mandolin here and there. What more can you ask from music than being taken in by its beauty?
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