Review Text
Tomten's spring and summer 2012 releases, the Ta Ta Dana EP and the following full length album Wednesday's Children (June) feature songs that have been thrilling Pacific NW audiences at club since they formed in 2010 (and placing them as winners at that year's EMP Sound Off! Contest). The April-release of ten inch extended play vinyl Ta Ta Dana features two A-sides, "Ta Ta Dana" and "So So So." These are deliciously crafted parlor romps featuring a keen sense of assured swing with shambolic passion (think the sweetest nuggets you'd hear on a Wes Anderson soundtrack). Fans of dream pop factories Papercuts, dark maestros like John Cale, or chanteuse-chasers such as Serge Gainsbourg will happily sip this extraordinary bliss of a sonic Cosmopolitan. Lead singer/songwriter Brian Noyse-Watkins is dapper at the Rhodes, Mellotron, Hammond and piano; he's from Monterey, CA and the musicians met through art school in Seattle, where Lena Simon (bass, singer of So So So, also in Pollens) met Brian on Orientation Day. Jake Brady (drums) and Gregg Belisle- Chi formed Tomten with them soon thereafter. Shared favorite LPs: all things Big Star, XO and Either/OR, Hunky Dory, and Rubber Soul from the Beatles. This dazzling ten inch is the first new band release from Flat Field Records, responsible for the "SpokAnarchy!" original soundtrack. The B-sides on the EP are "Thwarting the Young" (an outright snarler unlike anything on the upcoming LP) and "It Won't Escape Me." Wednesday's Children will be out in the summer, after they play your town and maybe even your favorite record store, where they will probably buy some records!
