The Tiny
Starring Someone Like You (Eyeball)
By Sheba White
Published: February 6th, 2007 | 2:01pm
Answers: Music you listen to while on a winter cruise; songs played while petting a frightened small animal; the background noise to a maiden running through a Scandinavian forest with a tiara of flowers and a gauzy gown twirling in the breeze. Question: What comes to mind when listening to the second full-length release from Sweden’s goth-classical trio the Tiny?
Starring Someone Like You is a complex orchestral turn from the lounge-like lilt of 2005’s Close Enough, with singer-pianist Ellekari Larsson’s lispy warble stretching over vocal territory previously covered by Kate Bush, Björk, and Joanna Newsom.
Like Newsom, Larsson is accompanied by a whirlwind of instruments: oboe and trumpet, violin and cello, marimba and double bass. Even a credit for “scraping noise and rustling leaves” makes its appearance on the icy opening track, “Kind of Like You,” and a surprisingly-appropriate musical saw mirrors Larsson’s trembling hum on the sparkling Gillian Welsh cover, “Everything is Free.”
Overall, it’s a cinematic, rumbling opus with fairytale moments that are delightful and pristine, but the production on Starring Someone Like You is at times too clean and affected — overpowering strings and stilted lyrics included. It’s a far cry from the “dirty” and “quirky” album the trio aimed for and much closer to the Technicolor slickness of a Disney soundtrack — dazzling at times, but riddled with expected answers.
Issue #25
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