Album Details

• Artist: Tilman Hartley
• Album: To Basics
• Label: Orthogonal Records
• Year of Release: 2012
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: carlita on 2012-10-28

For anyone who loves epic guitar riffs, Tilman Hartley's guitar riffs on his album, To Basics, you'll simply enjoy as they hit your ears with a boom as soon when you hit play. Although being officially released in January, Spotify, iTunes and most of your major electronic music media outlets currently offer a sneak peek. Sounding vocally like Paul McCartney but musically similar to The Pixies and The Smiths, there is definitely "going to be a war" (or a protest of a war and the state of the economy- "growing gap between rich and poor") coming from your speakers. "Belle Du Jour" unpredictably comes out of left field with lyrics like "prostitution left her days free for her PHD".
Ok then.

Softening the album with acoustic guitar on "No Lies" and "Wait for It", Tilman keeps the societal commentary consistent and the human needs (air, shelter, food and drink) like the tainted glass of water on the cover, basic. There's a sense of fatalism building intensity as if there's an acknowledgment or acceptance of an unhappy fate (losing a game he didn't
even know he was playing)-like waiting for a meteor to hit the Earth, a "Frankenstorm"
("sea levels rise") to shut down a whole coast or the Mayan calendar to end (it ends in December- we shall see).  If you're down with doom when "things go wrong" in a "vacuum that human nature abhors", this record is just what the cynical doc ordered.

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