Tim Toz and Joy Tolbert are longtime
veterans of the East Coast music scene and the long years spent honing their
craft are apparent on their latest release under the banner TnT Music,
“Pieces”. The song is ripped from the tradition of dealing with heart ache and
the songwriting expresses itself with magnificent eloquence without ever
sacrificing its accessibility or actually tilling new ground. Their
collaboration largely exists over the Internet, but they haven’t let their
distance dictate the direction of their work. Instead of feeling constrained,
they’ve proven quite prolific and have produced over twelve songs since their
initial meeting on Soundcloud. The latest “Pieces” rank as their most fully
realized collaboration yet and touches, even lightly, on a number of stylistic
voices that they bring together artfully and without any visible stitching.
It’s clearly a studio confection at
certain moments. The opening has a pleasing mesh of lightly applied keyboards
and harmonized vocals before giving way to a brief, but very flashy, electric
guitar introduction. Everything feels a bit studied and constructed before the
first verse. The pomp and circumstance clears out and a warm acoustic guitar
wafts out of the rubble. Tolbert’s voice joins in with a refined blues tone
guiding the way. Her vocal is really the song’s gleaming highlight. She takes
care, without ever becoming too stiff and rigid, to mold the words around the
musical accompaniment and it pays off in giving the track a much more
considered air. The carefulness she shows extends to Toz’s musical response –
in contrast to the brash opening, the verses and even the impassioned choruses
are tastefully and organically laid out for listeners. The changes move in a
very coherent fashion and, when the ending comes, “Pieces” clearly resolves
itself.
The lyrical content is a rung above the
usual text in songs like this. Tolbert, fortunately, isn’t content with
trotting out a familiar series of tropes that merely hit the marks for songs of
this subject matter. Instead, she seems quite intent on rendering her
experience and feelings in the most personal terms imaginable. There isn’t any
overt suggestion of a confessional mode working here – while she writes from a
first person point of view, Tolbert’s focus is on making universal points
rather than weighing us down with the minutia of her heart ache. The singing
aims at a similar effect through her refusal to overplay her vocal. There’s
never a moment in her performance when the weight of her vocal pulls the song
down into ham-fisted dramatics. Instead, the aforementioned attentiveness
serves her well for seamlessly bringing both the musical backing and voice
together.
“Pieces” reminds those of waning faith
that even veteran musicians in the indie scene are still producing work that
invigorates and challenges their audience. Toz and Tolbert work supremely well
together and it doesn’t seem to be a labored process – based on their
productivity alone, they’ve obviously discovered they share a sympathetic
musical vision. TnT Music might not be headlining Madison Square Garden, but
they certainly play and invest their enthusiasm into the material as if they
were.
William Elgin III
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