Well, you’ve had yer clocks you’ve had yer paintings and yer messages on bottles.  He’s made music that’s soundtracked yer life and played shows you’ll take to the grave.  He tells tales and japes and never acts his age and on this here CD he does what he’s best at and that’s writing music and songs that we’ve all championed at some point during our adult and not so adult lives.

More Pam Airs and John Cooper Clarke and Bukowski than Shelly Or Keats and that’s where the charm lies.  If you’re a fan you get it.  Some do some don’t but it is what it is from the wonderful artwork to the fractured recitals it’s all part of the charm.

‘Isolation Station Blues’ is a rugged often dark walk on the Wildside where the bottleneck gets put to good use and the blues come rolling on by. The opener sets the tone and is something we’ve all been living for the past twelve months and jolly good it is too.  The great thing here is the songs come thick and fast and the next one to peel open is the wonderful ‘Humans Just like You’ its classic Tyla from the style of playing to the drawl and melody.  You lean in closer and drink it all in.  Demo or not it’s a quality slice of tunage that for sure.

If you are looking for a reference then I’d happily put this next to the magnificent Johnny Thunders and his ‘Hurt Me’ album. take songs like ‘The Chambers’ for example it could easily have come out of a Thunders writing session full of dark melancholy. The delivery is late night and exquisite.

The fact that it’s not just a man with an acoustic guitar but he plugs in a dry Electric for songs like ‘Life Goes On’ is cool.  It’s the germs of some fantastic songs right here some of the best I’ve heard from T in quite a while he’s mining a rich seam of songwriting recently maybe this lockdown malarky is focussing and in turn some fine fine material is pouring out not just here but ‘The Powder Dry EP’ was exceptional. I love the melody of ‘Where The Past Never Goes’ but this was only release number one there are two more to go.

Volume two begins with a reflective ‘Deliver Me’ then ‘Ballad Of An Extraordinary Man’ and the big Chords of ‘Lighthouse’ in contrast ‘Mayday Mayday’ is a bruising electric riff.  ‘Rewind’ is a short recital along with ‘Tales Of The Money God’ which is a little piraty oh argh! But Vol 2 ends with the excellent ‘Tenderhooks’ and onto Vol 3 which is entitled ‘El Dia De Los Muertos’  you know Day of The Dead.  It’s another ten demos folks and again some crackers are hatched in here I mean I love ‘Best Thing Ever’ dont know why I gravitate towards that one over another but thats the beauty of music right there hell, ‘Dorian’ has the potential to be a glorious Tyla song.

We have spoken words amongst the demos as well so in a nutshell this two-CD collection we have over forty compositions and all flavours and shades of Tyla that we know and love ‘Wherever You Go’ has touches of Bowie and Ronno going on from the melody to the delivery its Hunky Dory either way.  I’m sure when normal human gatherings are a thing and Tyla can get in a studio and explore these songs with his fellow musicians they will grow and blossom further and some will be just right as they are in this early raw form.  Either way, my advice would be to get your mitts on these here demos and get em on the player pronto yer lockdown will fly by, trust me I’m a…happy chappy.  Chin chin as they say around these parts and with almost a dozen additions to the previously available tunes its a no brainer.

buy the set Here

Author: Dom Daley