Tickley Feather

Tickley Feather: “Tonight Is The Nite”

from Tickley Feather (Paw-Tracks)

tinglin’ dice// Album Out April 29

(orig. published mid-April 2008)

           

Tickley Feather is no tease. Even in her video single, “Sex Face,” when she muses that “I wanna go home with you,” and also “I don’t wanna go home with you,” that’s just how it is sometimes; you do and you don’t. And even though she usually (at least on MySpace and YouTube) sounds like she’s singing in the shower, swirling around in a bit of gray metal echo and lo-fi recording hiss, so that most things she says and sings, however robustly, might be heard differently by different listeners; still, she does sound robust, if young, and girly, but not too waify, and her feather brushes by in a tantalizing way, but still it tickles, in a way that’s more gratifying than teasing usually is (to the teased). Not too scarily determined, not “gaslights and hard flirtation,” as George Eliot would put it, but flirtatious enough that it might be nice listen to, in gnarly loops, whilst watching the Jane Austen marathon on PBS. She’s cute but not cloying, and young, but never oh-what’ll-I-do? Maybe a little anxious, but resourceful, in a no-budget way. The perky-to-murky vocal notes, shuffley keyboard beats (and even hooks) may be rationed, but they’re there when she reaches for them. Tickley Feather is Annie Sacks, who claims she’s from the woods (bio says Richmond, VA, before Philly), and has in fact been a single mom for four years, so she knows how to put a basic meal together. And how to entertain a kid, and a notion. Stir the latter around, swirl it in the shower, ‘til you’ve got a strange brew, got an ear leant too, coming towards you, though she sometimes swerves, via her favorite “zoom effects box,” and more often a confident urge to vocally contour or at least decorate the chronic sonics and little shadowy places. Which can receive let’s call-‘em-dubby flickers of room noise, sprinkles of keyboard garble, and abrupt endings also.  It’s worked well enough, on Tickley Feather’s short trail of singles and EPs, to lead Animal Collective to give her an opening slot on some of their shows, and now she's got a self-titled, full-length debut album on A.C’s label, Paw-Tracks.

The advance single from Tickley Feather (the rest of which hadn’t arrived by press time) is “Tonight Is The Nite,” which bears no resemblance to the 50s doo-wop song (nor the Neil Young song) of almost the same title, except in terms of anticipation, and the aforementioned confidence. Ditto the aforementioned hooks, because a skinny, surefooted vamp jumps right out, and keeps on jumping in place, adding a little buzz to the possible question mark (something curvy like that) tickling “Tonight” ‘s more up-front-as-sung exclamation mark! (All this punctuation makes up for/even improves on the ending of another MySpace track, Tickley Feather and Money Bags’ “I Like To Watch, “  which leads right up to and through the title phrase, which disappears without a punctuation mark, much less an object: what’s she, who’s she watching…is not even a question, but a dissolving possibility, to be filled in by a listener led to be less passive, for once.) On “Tonight Is The Nite”, Tickley Feather provides an example of and for the active lifestyle. “Make you mine, make you mine, make you mine,” she seems to chant, and furthermore, “Goin’ downtown,  goin’ downtown, goin’ downtown,” or possibly, “Goin’ south, goin’ south, goin’ south,” which does not, in this context seem to mean,” Goin’ into decline.” If she’s going south, it’s in a good direction, and if this music don’t sound southern, get hip, buddeh. The clanky but not clunky keyboard riff (not a million years from Soft Cell’s recasting of “Tainted Love,” which was born as migratory as Motown), keeps landing like a black vinyl valentine heart, reflecting street lights, carlights and porchlights, right on a threshold that gets to look like a  dartboard, with all those little holes (courtesy the pointy valentine). So, not all pretty-pretty, but (close enough to) bullseye every time.