GINA and Ryan, the Bristol bedroom pop duo trading as Mumble Tide, have a lot of fun while delivering the goods. They’re not precious, but still so punchy; avoid the pose and the disappearance up the fundament, yet are a band to get totally serious about.
The pair, who met when Ryan answered a Gumtree ad for a bassist but who decided they pretty much liked the look of each other romantically, too, fankyoowerymuch, first entered the collective BSM hive mind with “Sucker” in May, guitars snarling as that man (or woman) was washed right out of their hair. There followed the woozy delights of “Breakfast” and last month’s sweeter “Love Thing”.
Going a but soft on us in your (really quite young, actually) old age, guys? Not a bit of it. New single “Noodle”, which you’ll find herein; it’s got genuine scrappy, shreddy guitars and fuzz and dirty excellence, like Dino Jr or Swervedriver or something, all overlaid with a classy falsetto pop chorus.
It sounds like it could be a song about the rush of love in a fatal attraction; actually, the noodle is, on first reading, Ryan’s nickname for Gina’s “abnormally long neck”. Umm … ok … but then when it’s as good as this, you can only imagine what roughly excellent melodicism say, ears might inspire.
“Noodle is the final single from their mini-album, Everything Ugly, which is out on December 3rd on Nothing Fancy – find out how to snare that below.
Studio trickery your bag? We’re told that swampy ‘guitar’ sound was actually achieved by “feedbacking a couple of 90s’ toy walkie-talkies off of each other”.
Of the song, Gina says: “During the last string of gigs we played, I told the audiences that this song was solely written and inspired by my neck (which Ryan reckons is abnormally long and has adopted ‘Noodle’ as a kind of pet name) but really there’s a bit more going on.
“I think in life, I have a tendency to pick things apart until they’re a bit of a mess and ‘Noodle’ paints an accurate picture of my heavily conflicted and rather ridiculous thought patterns. I guess it’s for people that don’t find it easy to relax and just be happy in themselves and where they’re at.
“There’s still a good dose of fun and silliness in there though, and a healthy awareness of the fact I tend to twist things way out of shape.”
They’re on a short tour at the end of the month, too – catch them here:
Monday, November 29th, Manchester, The Castle;
Tuesday, November 30th, Cambridge, Blue Moon;
Wednesday, December 1st, Bristol, The Crofter’s Rights, and
Thursday, December 2nd, London, Hackney, The Sebright Arms.
Mumble Tide’s mini-album Everything Ugly will be released by Nothing Fancy digitally and on limited edition orange vinyl on December 3rd; there’s also an ultimate merch bundle including a lucky dip cassette with a randomised tracklist. You can order your chosen version right now over at their Bandcamp page.
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