Review of Happy Houses by Simon Smith, Higher Plain Music

Who knew there was a genre of music labelled Toytronica?!? Welcome to the world of Twink whom makes the most cutest tracks that centre around a toy piano and a dance beat.

"Close to Home" opens with a real knife-edge balance between ultra cute toy piano plinks and plonks with uncanny melodies and some really harsh synth chords. The result is a playful track that has its crazy edge to it too. It's like Teletubbies have gone bad...and that can only be awesome really. It's surprising how many ways Twink makes a loop sound fresh and this continues with "Ostrich Hop" which deals with ascending note structures and mini nods to bossa nova and dub step in the percussion area. Here the toy piano is coupled with a lazy brass melody that breaks out into a bouncy ska hop. "Chickaboo" sounds like a lost track from a 16 bit mascot platformer. It's so airy and confident with its tight melodies and breezy demeanour - I challenge anyone to not feel chipper after it. "Gumdrop Glitter" sounds more like a happy to please menu theme or end credits screen from the same era. There's a simplicity I just love about the composition and how just some switch ups in the beat or bass changes the same tune into something very different.

"Turtle Trap" turns to thumb pianos and tuned percussion to provide a clumsy, plodding and fuzzy feeling to the toy piano. It reminds me a bit of Yasunori Mitsuda's The Box Garden soundtrack, one of my all time favs. "Interloodle" is like going back to school and taking a music class in all those instruments you've never played with since school. "Crocodilly" returns to the thick bass and playful toy piano chords of the earlier tracks, with more of a push towards the tronica side of the genre. I love how the time signatures constantly change-up as if the animal is running or stalking after a prey. Lastly "Frankentoy" closes the album with a twisted honky tonky toy piano creep fest. It's detuned, warped and full of pitch bending synths. It's frankly glorious.

Twink has simply shown me an utterly new genre. It's not quite kids TV music as there's edge to some of the tracks, but they fall more towards the old skool platforming anthems I grew up with in the early 90's. For that, Twink deserves to be listened to in their droves. I give you... Toytronica!