Review of the Twink CD & picture-book from Xtra MSN, review by Faith Hamblyn

If you were to describe with music what cult movies are, the quality that makes clowns scary or at what point childhood turns nightmarish, it would sound like Twink. While the range of instruments used and the skill with which they are experimented with/played is impressively comprehensive, the sense of wonder and magic they convey, and the absolute capacity for the gorgeously sinister is instantly accessible. From the building anticipation of the first track to the European fairy tale pathos of the last, this is an album as richly creative and exact as any Frank Zappa has ever cut.

There's stuff here reminiscent of computer games, cartoons and electronic music, waxing funky and corny and running the length and breadth of a virtuosic spectrum. Highly suited to the animated shorts it found a home in on MTV Europe, the haywire collection of basic toy piano and various effects is like contemporary art music (The Residents, Barnes and Barnes) with the wizardry and canny innovation of Kraftwerk. If gothic and industrial, even dance music was forced to break it down to what it really meant to say, the result would likely have this kind of an elemental sound to it.

As impressive visually as it is aurally, Twink features a picture book with a compact disc inside in the design of a 45 — combining the simplicity of animation and music inspired to various degrees by nursery rhymes with intricate sophistication. Different traditional instruments and toy samples sound odd or beautiful because of their contrast; strings for the sombre sleep, xylophone and marching drum for fun. It is as crazy as a controlled carnival ride, or the genius of the best circus entertainer; all of the adventure just on the edge of danger and set in the subconscious.