Can I be straight up honest here? There have been so many releases this year that I haven’t had much time to delve into anything that is out of the ordinary; that pushes the envelope, even though we have had a fair few of those in the past.
But with the Scandinavia vacations underway I found the time to check out a few offers that might not get a listen normally. One of them is Thomas and the Terrible Truth, who is Thomas Ågren, out of Uppsala, north of Stockholm and from where we have received many contributions over time.
I once saw the American experimentalist Thomas Truax, who plays a variety of oddball instruments, some of which he made himself from bits of those that were lying around, unused and unloved. And just for a moment I thought that our Thomas might even be he, in disguise. He does look a little like him, albeit a younger version.
But American Thomas is an experimentalist mainly with woodwind and brass instrumentation while ours is distinctly an electronic one.
I took a quick listen to his recently releases album, ‘Don’t Mind Me. I’m Normal,’ before settling on this sample track, ‘Ready to belong’, and I selected it oddly because it’s the nearest to the ‘normal’ that Thomas claims to be, although the ultimate track ‘In the Middle of the Sound’ also came into contention. I don’t mind the really abstract and bizarre but I don’t like to stray too far from the middle of the road either.
This one suits the bill perfectly. He manages somehow to manipulate a protest song (I doubt Thomas really wants to belong to anything remotely normal and I reckon many of his songs are ironic into a catchy, understated statement-of-case anthem which you could easily jog or drive to, or perhaps even dance to, in the right environment.
Thomas distinctly reminds me of his Swedish compatriot Solblomma, who is equally his female equivalent in how she is able to translate the obscure and bizarre into listenable stories with strong tunes.
Yet at the same time you might find yourself musing that parts of this song have a sense of 80s electro pop about it. Hints of Pet Shop Boys and Howard Jones.
I don’t know how he made this eight track album, in his bedroom with an Ableton, or in the studio but it hardly matters anyway. It’s different and in a world of bland that means a lot.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071871510261
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomasandtheterribletruth/
