Candythief – Technicolour Wilderness
I really can’t think of much to compare this to, so I think just listening to the songs below and judging for yourself would probably be the best route. Musically, there’s all sorts jammed into this album – folk (sort of), cabaret (here and there), a little bit of swing, some indie, some, er, well, a little bit of almost everything really. It’s chock full of dramatically sawed violins and wink-and-a-nudge accordions, but there’s still enough ballsy rock ‘n’ roll in the undercurrents to make this a lot more than another pastiche of some imagined indie band who ran away with the circus.
Dianna dresses her songs up in shades of Jacques Brel and Neil Hannon theatricality, but the lyrics tend more towards the dark humour of the former than the whimsical fancy of the latter. For such an old-fashioned album (evocative of an imaginary time and place perhaps, but strangely nostaligic nevertheless) the tales told are themselves really quite modern. In fact, this could easily read as the diary of a modern girl-about-town in many ways, just one with genuine wit and intelligence instead of the usual obsession with shopping and shoes.
I really do like Technicolour Wilderness actually. It’s just… and odd record, I suppose. It has a tremendous character and personality all of its own, and I find that incredibly endearing for some reason. Add to that the gorgeous instrumentation and I reckon this is a real gem of an album.
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this is a delightful album & matches her 100mph off in every direction train of thought personality perfectly. (& I mean that in an extremely nice way, Dianna is one of the nicest & jolliest musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet).
I seem to recall meeting her long before I was aware of Candythief. Mrs. Toad and I saw Jeremy Radway (Player Piano) play a solo set at Homegame about three years ago and we were really enthused, and ended up talking to Dianna almost by accident, just because she was there and we loved what we had just heard, and I think it turned out that he was playing bass in her band at the time and she was really pleased that we liked his stuff so much. It took me about two years to actually listen to her stuff, to my eternal shame.
She’s a wee sweetie, so she is.
Loving these.