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CD Feature/ Tying Tiffany: "Brain for Breakfast"

  Tobias

It is a curse of the internet: Regardless of what you’re doing, there always be someone with an unqualified comment to spoil the fun. A random collection of quotes from the web relating to this release reads as follows: “Peaches Copycat”, “A singer with an obnoxious voice”, “A somewhat primitive record sung in clumsy English”, “Italodisco comeback”. Don’t let them fool you – “Brain for Breakfast” is the ultimate Summer record this Winter has on offer and a serious artistic progression.

As an old Chinese proverb rightly claimed, attack is the best form of defence, and Tying Tiffany can be confident enough to bravely face these complaints: Just because she plays with her sexuality in her lyrics and sizes issues down to catchy, demonstrative phrases does not make her a soulmate to Canadian Strip-Rapper Peaches and she had already left the days of Italodisco far behind long before recording her “undercover” debut. Whether or not her voice makes you reach over for a pack of Aspirines is a question of personal preferences, of course. Let’s just say her rebellious and defiant tone sits well with the energetic gruffiness of the music.

All the more appropriate that she should now sign with a label specialised in Punk and emphasise the rock-side of her music more than ever. Abrasive guitars charge up the chorus of elastic Nutcracker pastiche “Download Me”, “I’d rather be an Outsider” is a whimsical melange of minimal electro and garage rock and “Pazza” harks back to dark Wave days in a surreal frantical holler – there even seem to be some real drums rolling through the otherwise computergenerated songs.

The infectious nature of these pieces is one reason why the album deserves to be treated with more respect. Deep lyrics are not exactly a must for an album which screams with excitment at the mention of the word “Pop”. The shining surface and burning immediacy of the arrangements are not intended for philosophical debates, they are an invitation to dance with one hand holding a machine gun.

The other reason is that there is quite a bit going on behind the scenes which keeps “Brain for Breakfast” interesting and surprising from beginning to end. Aside from the already mentioned cross-over between synthetic structures, guitar-riffs and even classical influences, the album presents Tiffany’s more volatile side on the subdued “Slow Motion” and the subcutaneous Krautrock ballad “State of Mind” and places her hypnotic vocals on top of a caleidoscopic future-house track on “Hollywood Hook”. Meanwhile, her mix of Drum n Bass, Gabba beats and minimal techno on “Easy Life” easily passes the post of experimental territory.

If “Undercover” was poking fun at highbrowed intellectualism and predictable expectations, “Brain for Breakfast” is completely serious about its mission of searching for the perfect pop tune. Maybe Tying Tiffany’s English is slightly clumsy– but the supposed primitivism of her songs is in fact nothing but the smooth surface of shimneringly melodic tunes polished to perfection.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Tying Tiffany
Homepage: I Scream Records