It’s been a year since Tu-Ner had unleashed their debut album on Trey Gunn’s 7d Media label entitled T-1 Contact Information. They have crafted their own ideas on how to make their own sound by delving into these deep, dark, and crazy territories with unbelievable results. For Markus Reuter, Pat Mastelotto, and Gunn himself, they don’t back down without a fight.
That and their latest release which was recorded during their 2023 tour at the time they were promoting their debut album, showcases the strange, the hypnotic, the static, and at times, off-the-wall explorations, the trio get down to business with Tu-Ner for Lovers.
Listening to this live recording, you feel as if you’re watching the three piece going through unexpected parallel universes with heavy touch guitar structures, the blaring sounds of the Warr instrument, and Mastelotto adding more fuel to the fire during those performances they gave at the venues they played.
And if you think that they’re going to pull some crimson motif, which they do, but you have to keep in mind, this isn’t your Daddy’s album, this is an album that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.
The tribes with clicking and clacking effects Pat does on ‘A Nightingale Sang in Our Tornado’ details the aftermath of the twisters who had done so much destruction in different locations across the United States. They trap themselves into this cat-and-mouse chase with the sounds of dogs howling, birds chirping, and a menacing end to walk into this Frippertronic segment as ‘Attack of the Puppet People’ gets even more brutal.
Trey and Markus duke it out in the boxing ring, causing chaos like no other and walk into the futuristic twist of the Red sessions that come in very handy for Markus and Trey’s instruments sending in the pulsating beats to extend the midsection of ‘One More Red Nightmare’ even further into the abyss while laying down some sonar vibrations with Pat’s intensive attacks coming in handy for the ‘Cardboard Rendezvous’ to arrive.
But they walk into Andy Summers’ territory unexpectedly during the Zenyatta Mondatta period, channeling the textures from ‘Behind My Camel’. You can hear the textures on tracks such as ‘Six Inches Tall’, and ‘The Last Barbie Tango’. Markus has a great knowledge of where the music comes in, and when the music starts to come out when he plays his instrument.
He shows how much he honours his arrangements to keep both Trey and Pat in hot pursuit by walking in the middle of the hot desert in ancient Egypt. There’s something very strange when Reuter goes ballistic for a brief moment on the opening track.
Here, he adds those bending cries to the howling gods, coming across the Rocky Mountains by howling like a madman, waiting for the next prey to be eaten at the last second. Reuter makes his instrument in the final section of the composition, transform into a hideous, blood-thirsty beast who is ready to feast for a massive amount of blood like no other!
Tu-Ner’s music may not be for the faint of heart. Yes, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea per se, but there is a strong sense of wisdom behind the three-piece. They don’t just sit down and eat chocolates whilst talking about what they did over the weekend, they plug-in, and get down to business and see where the music will take them. And it’s the danger that’ll enthrall you again and again to see what evil lurks behind closed doors.
