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Tickley Feather, Monster Island Basement, NYC

Live Reviews

Annie Sachs has managed to turn her personal recording project into an endevour worth your attention.

13th December 2009, Monster Island Basement, NYC / By Willis Arnold
Tickley Feather Tickley Feather’s music is suvite, that is to say it sounds as though it were cooked in water. By embracing her cheep equipment, and developing a personal aesthetic that seems calculated to imitate gauze, Annie Sachs has managed to turn her personal recording project into an endevour worth your attention.

Now a four person live band, Tickley Feather come on with heavy hypnosis. Their electronic drum track makes do as a shaman’s tom in our digital age, and the continual plummet of early synthesizer chords quickly envelope any listener looking for haze in their musical experience. The intro is an unexpected milestone in my listening of the band, for a group fronted by a woman with a childlike voice, they sure could come off as creepy.

Although the music is suited to the Williamsburg venue Monster Island Basement, it is easy to tune out the Christmas lights and record store in the back, and imagine that the band is playing alongside a bonfire, somewhere deep in the Mojave. Probably at three in the morning.

Sachs’ pinions benefit from the full band, and her music lost the tinny quality shared by some of her recordings. Sometimes the show seems less about the music (gurgling guitar, thrumming synth) and more about the atmosphere they create. Though the music has equal moments of pop and paranoia, the musicians are not dark and seem to be enjoying themselves. At one point Miss Sachs breaks from the music, points to her right hand and wryly reassures the crowd, “I broke a finger nail today, I’m not just wearing this to look cool.”

With songs like 'Python' (the encore) covering the Tickley Feather’s darker inclinations, and 'Muscles' foregrounding an edge of accessibility, Annie Sachs seems pleasantly intent in clouding your mind. Rating: 7/10
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