Nine hot pop songs drawing influence from an 80s childhood, a 90s adolescence…. and beyond.
A heady mix of electro pop, synthwave and psychedelic ROCK delivered with post punk ‘tude and some ‘umour simmering beneath the surface. It’s a pretty nostalgic sounding record.
Recorded in the summer of 2024 at Sound Park Studios as it was being demolished (and rebuilt soon afterwards)…. I went in with lots of half cooked, home baked tracks and got Idge to run them all through his deluxe analog gear and make them sound delicious. I took in loads of snacks too, which really got the vibe going.
Mastered by Richard Stolz at Woodstock studios who ran it through some more deluxe analog gear, and brought it to a polished pop sheen. I’m really stoked with how it turned out!
Released February 18, 2025
Source: Debut, Self Titled Album, by Twinkle Digitz by @bandcamp
I wondered if I was ever going to hear Twinkle Digitz in full hi-fi, not just via a lockdown recording. I always joked that it was going to be some kind of Chinese Democracy? I wondered if pressing of the album was held up by Taylor Swift Industrial Complex. But really I wondered how many artists with the creativity condition aren’t given the permission, the time, the space and funds to complete work? I guess in the end what matters is being grateful that it is finally here.
There are some disparate albums that desperately try to sound whole, but end up sounding disjointed. Twinkle Digitz self-titled debut album is definitely disparate, with so many sounds and influences spread throughout. Rather than sound like a group of random songs with no sense of continuity (listen to Daniel Johns’ FutureNever for example), it feels like different sounds and ideas – robotic voice(s), syn tom-toms, spoken samples – are used to anchor the listener, while at the same time invite them into a wider cinematic universe. (I know Bat for Lashes wrote Lost Girls as a soundtrack to an imaginary film where a gang of biker women who roam the sunset streets of an eerie, make-believe vision of LA. There is a similar quality to this album, I am just not sure what the imaginary movie is.) I think this sense of continuity is what makes the album an improvement on the live set. I had heard the majority of the songs across the three times I have seen Twinkle Digitz live, but I believe the whole is greater than there parts. It truly feels like an album, especially with the Brian Wilsonesque slow jam Wait in the Future (Friendo) that it finishes with.
Another interesting element to this album is that even with all the pastiche references to the past with synths, drums and vocal treatment, I feel there is only ever one Twinkle Digitz. Reading a few books about post-punk lately (Rip It Up and Start Again, Talking with Girls About Duran Duran, and Sweet Dreams), I can’t help but hear a nod to Haysi Fantayzee in the music of Architecture in Helsinki or Scritti Politti in the music of Yeasayer. However, I feel it is harder to make such explicit through-lines with Twinkle Digitz. I remember reading a comment from Peter Walsh about the Go-Betweens in the early days and how you knew what records they had been listening to.
PETER WALSH: They’d never say it, but you could tell which part of the record collection he’d (Robert Forster) listened to in the two minutes it took for him to write that song.
Source: The Go-Betweens by David Nichols
Although there are clearly references throughout Twinkle Digitz’ album, they never take-over. Here I am reminded of Jon Hopkins point, made in a conversation with Jamie Lidell, that he wishes he could ‘choose’ the music he writes. Instead, Hopkins argued that we have no choice over what we do, the choice is about what our body gives energy for. All we can do is appreciate the outcome. Thinking about Twinkle Digitz, this means that even when he tries to make a 80’s synthpop track like Dancing In My Dreams, it sounds like everything and nothing all at once. A bricolage of ideas brought together to create something new. This is only extended further with the video clips. In addition to the sound, there is something to be said about the intended audience of this album.
I remember listening to an interview with David Byrne and Annie Clark about their collaboration. The first consideration about the music was what sort of venues they would be playing.
A lot of pop music originates in small, fairly intimate clubs, and then it finds itself in the unfortunate situation of, as the act gets more popular, being performed in school gymnasiums, and it sounds horrible. From there it goes from the frying pan into the fire, the act becomes even more successful and they’re playing in sports arenas where in many cases it also sounds terrible, although there’s plenty of technology to try and accommodate that as best as possible. So there’s kind of a sad example of music that really sounds great in a small space, but finds itself, when it does well, being rewarded by sounding horrible.
Source: The Inside Sleeve – David Byrne and St Vincent (ABC Radio)
This sense of starting small does not seem to be Twinkle Digitz approach (nor Damian Cowell’s Disco Machine). With so many different sounds and ideas it can be hard to work out what the ideal space or audience is (probably not necessarily The Thornbury Local nor a bath.) One of the things I was wondering about the recorded version was how the songs might differ from the live sound. As a one man band, I had imagined that many of the elements were sequenced, therefore laying these down on tape would be straightforward. A quasi-live recording. I think I was wrong. The recorded versions feel like they have taken the flesh and bones of the original tracks and built them out sonically, layering melodies and vocals, bringing in even more wacky effects, and somewhat controlling the chaos. I definitely cannot hear the interference between the glasses and the music equipment in these recordings.
All in all, Twinkle Digitz self-titled album is a pleasurable release, bringing the id to the forefront, and taking the edict of ‘treat them to an anchovy‘ to the point of sometimes forgetting the other toppings altogether.