As they slide into the metronomic groove of Kuukauden myyjä, you can certainly see why Finland’s Teksti-TV 666 are being hailed in some quarters as the new Gods of Kraut rock; however there is a massive wedge of their music – strangely enough as they sing entirely in their native tongue – that has a very British – and very noisy – edge to it.
Kuukauden myyjä, for instance, has a distinct air of My Bloody Valentine or Spacemen 3 to it’s relentless axe attack, whilst TJ brings the feels from an even more obscure level mixing in avant sax in a manner these ears probably haven’t witnessed since Nik Turner‘s Inner City Unit were doing the rounds of the squats back in the seventies and eighties.
Everything that’s old is new again, of course, and so T-TV666 are being championed as heroes, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that; Despite it’s obvious influences, there’s a freshness about Ilmainen pizza, with it’s chiming, Big Country/Skids axe refrains that’s almost impossible to resist. In the week where we’ve lost Television’s Tom Verlaine, it seems fitting that new anti-rock guitar acts emerge to carry on his flame; and the rousing chorus that appears from nowhere on …pizza, if a little muscular perhaps, certainly wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Television album…
Closing track Jeffrey is the most straightforward (and thus probably the track to start with if you’re unsure if these guys are for you), motoring along behind a ramshackle vocal that twists in and out of the compelling lead-guitar lines in exciting fashion; This is truly energising music, important music, and it’s fabulous to listen to in an age where most ‘alternative’ music exists entirelyand very safely within the mainstream and seems happy to do so. Teksti-TV 666 are outsiders, and their strange and beautiful music deserves to be celebrated.
Vapauden tasavalta releases on February 24th.
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