Where is the Love for the Tough Alliance?

listening to their discog on the phones right now

I was about to start this thread myself. Their album has over the last few days become one of my absolute favourites for the year (wouldn't have discovered them without Scott Pl's advocacy though).

It's like two parts Junior Senior, two parts Saint Etienne, one part KLF. What's not to love??

i think this band (or dude idk) air france is on their label, and their most recent EP is like TTA + studio. a little more slinkier, a little better i think.

i like tta a lot though.

I really like Air France's On Trade Winds EP a lot too. It's a very similar sound isn't it, and Air France are probably even prettier, even more delectable sounding, even more riotously detailed. But there's an arch distance there that keeps me from liking them quite as much as The Tough Alliance (or, indeed Studio).

It's like, if The Tough Alliance are Foxbase Alpha/So Tough, Air France are more like The Sound of Water.

There's a joyful and, I think, quite unselfconscious effervescence to The Tough Alliance - like the absolutely shameless cod-reggae of "Looking For Gold", or just generally the glittering perfection of all their pop hooks.

yeah i could see that, esp. w/ regards to something like "beach party" — which i love, but wish was about 3 minutes longer — which is basically ambient in a way. the synths + vocals on "never content" hit me harder than anything by tta though, except maybe "25 years and running".

I like this record more and more. Though I can't get the KLF comparisons (at least musically not), but very pleasant and smart music.

Nice to see they have great taste too - this is their songs of the year list (from a Pitchfork article on such things):

Sean Kingston: "Beautiful Girls"
Taken by Trees: "Open Field"
Beyoncé: "Irreplaceable"
Axwell: "I Found You"
T-Pain: "Buy You a Drank"
Air France: "Afraid You Told Someone About Us"
Cappuchino: "High Grade"
Glass Candy: "Rolling Down The Hills"
Ne-Yo: "Go On Girl"
Panda Bear: "I'm Not"
Kylie Minogue: "Two Hearts (Studio Remix)"
Rihanna: "Umbrella"
The Honeydrips: "Fall From a Height"
Mike Jones: "Mr. Jones"

I haven't heard some of these. Can someone tell me about Cappuchino, The Honeydrips and/or Taken By Trees?

I'm most gratified to see them rep for "I Found U" - even though it only came in at, like, 54 on my songs of the year list, it's the kind of thing you never see anyone talk about in such lists (a process I'm complicit with obv). Check it out!

Great taste but also kinda obvious as much as it isn't?

Ha ha well yeah it's a top ten list (or top fourteen anyway) - no doubt my list at that length would look pretty obvious too!

"1981" is a really, really, REALLY amazing song.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47678-interview-the-tough-alliance

wow, they're really annoying.

Pitchfork: How do you divide up songwriting duties?

The Tough Alliance: We really don't want to be rude or snobbish but we've always felt very awkward answering those kind of questions. We have worked very hard to make our expression as varied, complex, free, and sensitive as our feelings and thoughts are. People seem to have an unhealthy need for simple, shallow, and irrelevant information and we feel it would oppose the essence of TTA to encourage this destructive behaviour. We want the focus to be on the expression of the unity TTA, not on our personas.

where is Ramosi/LC??

"the essence of TTA" is that they are slagsmålsklubben for the indie set>>>>

barfffff

'stars are blind', sean kingston and early manics = all things worth being pricks about

'silly crimes' is cool, maybe i'll check the the album out

really does sound like francesco totti and all

Air France's "Hold On To Me, Baby" is pretty great. Very very pretty, somewhere between Stereolab and Disco Inferno's "Second Language".

yes, air france is brilliant. will they ever release anything else is the question...

xpost: do not toy with our emotions thus!

I like these guys.

Aargh, which Stephin Merritt track do the synthetic strings seven seconds into "Silly Crimes" reference? The bit three seconds in sounds like "It's A Crime", but the later bit ... something off Holiday?

should be no love for these guys. worst live performance ever in Göteborg, Sweden a few years ago. Wearing scarves and smoking, looking pathetic, walking back and forth on stage, singback, playback..... oh dear, this is probably just me being old. but they are still crap.

are scarves pretentious

Sporadically, the synths on "Miami" = Toto's "Africa"! I love the, uh, shamelessness of their shinyness; it's like Cupid & Psyche '85 Scritti meets happy hardcore.

Fucking Tough Alliance not fucking playing at the fucking V Festival after I shelled out so much fucking money for the tickets! Fuck that. Don't take out your situationists pranks on me.

Glass Candy were ace though.

I'm obsessed with "Taken Too Young", which is downloadable from their label Sincerely Yours' website. It's absolutely beautiful and totally unlike the last album: imagine a cross between the Panda Bear album and the Supermayer remix of Gotye's "Heart's A Mess". Real standard setting for collage pop. When I play this back to back with Air France's "No Excuses", it makes me think Scandinavia is in an absolute golden age - not to mention Studio, Mungolian Jet Set, Lindstrom...

Along related lines, has anyone heard The Tough Alliance's ambient album Escaping Your Ambitions from 2006? I'm imagining something along the lines of Saint Etienne's "Railway Jam" with more samples and synthesiser.

Even if it is no good I love the fact that they've made an ambient album.

Possibly any lingering objectivity I might have once possessed has been abolished by the uhhh the hottness:

http://www.discogs.com/image/A-305005-1207349149.jpeg

let's try that again

i want to move to gotenburg

Ooooer. Tim, have you heard the Bogdan Irkük remix of Jens Lekman's "Sipping On The Sweet Nectar"? Lekman's Scandanavian, though I've no idea about Irkük ...

I bought the album, but I must say it doesn't live up to the expectations made by their remix of Taken By Trees. They should just do everything with her.

ah... So "Taken Too Young" is actually their remix of "Too Young" by Taken Too Trees? I guess that explains why the vocals sound a bit different. Their website is a bit misleading.

I love the remix as well matinee but more for the music than the vocals (though they are nice). I actually really like their shiny multitracked vocals on their own songs.

Stevie I haven't heard that remix - more info?

Lekman actually lives in Tim's town now!

He's moved to Melbourne? Not surprising. Melbourne is a very Jens Leckman-y kind of place.

I have his last album and I saw him from a distance at the Golden Plains festival this year.

I like him, though i think he's slightly more arch/self-aware than the other similar Swedish stuff I like, which also leads through to deliberately flawed (though always interesting and frequently very pretty) production. I much prefer the appearance of absolute earnestness and conviction you get with TTA - if they don't "mean it", they're very careful to hide it.

Stockholm's The Sound of Arrows are like a cross between Jens Leckman and The Tough Alliance - plus throw in a very strong The Magnetic Fields circa Holiday resemblance here, though curiously of the many and varied influences that TSOA cite (including Jens and TTA), The Magnetic Fields isn't one of them. Production is more in the vein of chunky sampling a la The Go! Team. Article on them and free download of "Danger!" here. I'm not sure if I like them yet - probably for the same reasons that I feel ambivalent about

It's like two parts Junior Senior, two parts Saint Etienne, one part KLF. What's not to love??

Oh I'll answer that one, it's fucking easy -- Junior Senior.

even though it's wrong to not love junior senior i'm amazed it took a year for someone to make that zing

(also i think the pet shop boys are conspicuously absent from that equation!)

Yeah in a write-up re an Air France track I suggested that the two groups both draw from Saint Etienne but The Tough Alliance tease out the Pet Shop Boys component of Saint Etienne while Air France tease out the dream-pop component.

Zombies cover!
Their version of Hung up on a Dream is awesome.

Hmm...

I don't normally get protective of my favourite songs (which Dream is certainly one of), but I'm not feeling this at all. Generally a defender of his vocals as well, but here...hmmm.....

if you want TTA vibes check out the John Talabot mix of Delorean's 'Seasun'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgwhJRjfrcM

Miami rules.

i really like silly crimes

you haven't been sb'd yet?

what does that mean

how are ppl feelin abt ceo

i tht it was kinda corny but mb i shld give it another chance?

http://www.parttimemusic.com/photos/articlephotos/1005/ceo.jpg

From Marcus Söderlund (of the Tough Alliance), other band is ceo. Out June 2010 on Sincerely Yours Records.

http://www.sincerelyyours.se/yours0144.php

1. all around
2. illuminata
3. love and do what you will
4. white magic
5. oh god, oh dear
6. no mercy
7. come with me

album is called White Magic and is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C9A3zJUemY&feature=related

this is great

ooh.

i got this in my inbox.

its coming out on modular i think in the usa

here's the pr bumph :

ceo arises in 1981 and 1891. in 3064 and tomorrow. after ibrahimovic and before nectanebo II. before the dark ages and after spring break. before time was, ceo is.

ceo arises in miami, hell, holzschlag, the andes, sparta, chianti and wall street. in the antennae galaxies, kungsmassan, flushing meadows and the mariana trench. before space was, ceo is.

you may call me sophia, yukio, fanta, eric, kiki and krishna. and wii and whitney.
ceo is the photosynthesis and an aria, it is silence and virginity lost in a gang bang.
ceo is a bird in space and ceo is the space in a bird.
ceo is saliva, patron, november rain and panic. it is a relief, a citrine and it is broken dreams.
ceo is the harlot, the prince the snake and the shaman. in a spyker c8 laviolette. and on a mirage.
ceo is raspberries and chlamydia, it is the shadow and it is a clapping game.
ceo is auroras and charlotte casiraghi. it is laser beams and a home by the ocean.
ceo is a lost love and rihanna's voice. it is hibernation, the spectacle and every breath you take.
ceo is platinum and it is valium, it is a quasar and it is a lie. ceo is a breech forest and a slamdunk.
ceo is the ashanti and ceo is seinfeld. it is eucalyptus, neon and a smile.
ceo is a war zone and a sanctuary. it is dukkha, dilla and the body of light.
ceo is cashmere, sweat, zooxanthellae and a stiletto. it is implosion technology and it is the match point.

ceo is you and you are me and i am ceo.

in eternity.

which to be honest, kind of put me off from clicking on the link.

overzealous press release. mark e you will like this.

It saddens me there wasn't more love for the ceo album - it's nowhere near as brilliant as anything from TTA but few things are and it's still worthy of some attention.

i'd love to pick it up if it'd get better USA distribution :'(

this album didn't really get under my skin if i am to be honest.
liked the production (title reminded me of the deeper stuff by yello), but struggled with the vocals.

I bought the album, but I must say it doesn't live up to the expectations made by their remix of Taken By Trees. They should just do everything with her.

The new Taken By Trees album is apparently all produced by Henning Furst of TTA? The lead single is, which is very good if a bit 08-wave-of-Scando-balearic-by-numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHZcQF9g1g

Well it was the best wave

The New School pressed on LP: http://sincerelyyoursforever.bigcartel.com/product/the-new-school-lp

And it's sold out.

I get real TTA vibes from Real Lies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qr_SvcC6Vc

I came here to post about the similarities between the Real Lies album and A New Chance but the last post is me doing much of the same so I can't add much more to that.