Album Review: Restless

For the supporters, for anyone who has seen Tunes of I perform live or were impressed by their EP, T.O.I., which received high praise from muzic.net.nz on its release, I can attest that Restless, Tunes of I’s debut album is worth the anticipation. Fleshed out as a seven-piece and helmed by a solid production team, this album captures the energy of a band that was born to be out on the main stage.

Restless is another child of the popular and largely successful crowd-funding model offered by Kickstarter, which for emerging bands is a good way to feel out an audience and find your niche, something I can’t imagine would have been that difficult for a band such as this.

Fashioned in the successful style of Six60, The Black Seeds, Kora, Fat Freddy’s Drop and other purveyors of the Dub/Roots sound we define as distinctly Kiwi, Tunes of I stand up with their contemporaries.

To stand out there are these subtle fusions within certain songs, little snippets of New Orleans calypso and injections of improvised Jazzy blues, that make Restless sound like the soundtrack to a Jamaican hard-boiled Neo-Noir film.

Strongest points of the album for me; the acoustic trail off that is the track See It Right, which is a track full of subtlety and moments of beauty and the emotional crux of the album, and also the progressive breakdown in the track Restless, which is restless in both name and style. That breakdown is sure to be a crowdpleaser, a real mover and shaker and coming closer to a genre I’m familiar with.

On a whole, Restless is a showcase of the band’s strengths, a testament to a level of musicianship beyond their years, and just a taste of what is sure to be a long and fruitful music career for Tunes of I.

Restless is available for pre-order from iTunes from November 2, or visit the website http://www.tunesofi.com/. You can hear their first taster Tautoko on the band’s YouTube channel.