Twink, the Toy Piano Band! Twink, the Toy Piano Band!

Review of Itsy Bits & Bubbles by Ektopia

With more than three years since Twink's last offering, A Very Fine Adventure, Mike Langlie has created another quirky masterpiece of toy piano goodness - Itsy Bits & Bubbles. Like his last album, this one takes a slight step back from the older Twink style and uses his toys around the tracks as opposed to being the primary instrument. Instead, lots of other toy instruments are used so you hear lots of squeaks and pings, bells and whistles as well. As well as this, there are lots of 8-bit blips and bloops, synth throbs and lines and programmed and sampled beats. Itsy Bits & Bubbles includes many styles of electronica (toytronica is a suggested tag!) but within the strange mix is a very cohesive collection is created with the signature sound that is immediately recognised and that we Twink fans are used to and love.

Highlights for me are Flibberty Gibbet with the unsuspected dubstep that rears its pounding head in the middle, Tumble Bunny with its fantastic melody that will have me humming for the rest of the day and Jellybean Tree, which could have easily been on the very first Twink CD. Itsy Bits & Bubbles stays madcap, upbeat and kooky throughout and I wouldn't want to hear it any other way. The cover delivers again with another one of Mike's incredible creations. Just on the right side of excessively cute! And the song titles are are cute as they always are - Peppermint Bee, Tumble Bunny, Daisy Doodle, Axel Foley, Floppy Boxing Octopus, Flibberty Gibbet, Pigeon Walk, Jellybean Tree, Lollidropper, Jollyhopper, Paisley Poodle and Tough Cookie. They sound like they've come straight out of a Dr Seuss story! Make sure you check out the rest of Twink's discography and also Twink's YouTube channel and don't miss the Twink cover of the 80's tune Axel Foley! Twink gold.

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