The big question is, of course, how much ice cream can you eat before you start to feel ill? Ask Mike Langlie, who is Twink, and no doubt the answer will be, “Quite a lot, actually.” Ice Cream Truckin’ is Twink’s fourth album. His previous three inhabited a world where cuteness continually threatens to turn the music into one-trick tackiness but never does. Toy instruments, circuit-bent electronics and samples of 1930s and ’40s children’s records have been the idiosyncratic basis on which Langlie successfully builds electronic and acoustic ensemble pieces. The premise for this release is that simple tunes were recorded using toy piano and sent out to a range of artists for remixing. 18 of the resulting tracks are compiled here, along with a cover of the ‘famous Mister Softee theme song,’ which sounds interesting enough but doesn’t quite culturally translate.
As with any compilation of the work of a range of producers, there are tracks that work and those that don’t. Things don’t start out well with Playsoundz and Milk Monster adding terribly lazy, lightweight beats to make their remixes sound like the worst kind of children’s music. The electronic musical accompaniment from a number of remixers tends to sound like out-takes from Jabba the Hutt’s Max Rebo Band. It isn’t until the remixers stop treating the source material as comedy that things pick up. MNK of Borough Beats adds some darkness to contrast the light of the source material in ‘Mint Chip’. Wayne Marshall turns the plinking sounds into rhythm and plays them off the hi-hats, then adds trumpet melodies of his own rather than relying on the toy piano in ‘Sprinkles’. The album highlights are ‘Strawberry Swirl’, attacked by nonnon, and ‘Dreamsicle’ by Bardacid, both of which are dark and rhythmic and aren’t afraid to glitch the source material rather than pay it reverence. This also means that the main weakness of Langlie’s originals – the quickly wearing high pitch sound of the toy piano – is circumvented.
Twink’s earlier albums have been successful mainly due to Langlie understanding the nature of his own idiom and contrasting it in the production of his backing tracks. This has meant that, while often playful, his music has never descended into kitsch. By failing to locate enough sympathetic producers, or producers brave enough to actually tackle the sounds head-on and subvert them as Langlie himself does, this collection becomes patchy.
Adrian Elmer
