Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam

TaSTatSBwTaS are a guy called Tim and his band, of which there are usually six, none of which are called Sam. When they play live, half the members wear T-Shirts with 'Tim' written on them, no one wears a T-Shirt with 'Sam' written on it. Only one member, Tim, is called Tim. They make instrumental music with acoustic guitars, clarinets, cellos, glockenspeils and ahhhhs. The sound is organic, melodious and, well, cute; kinda like a forest saying goodnight to all the little woodland creatures. In my experience, it's rare to find a band that attempts to channel youthful awkwardness into something so graceful and unashamedly uncool--I think it's great.

I bought this EP from Tim's mum, as she was sat behind a table at the gig. It came with a free teabag. But if you don't live in Manchester, you can grab Tim's self-released three track EP from the myspace. Here's the magnificent title track; enjoy:

Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam - Stepping Stones

Ben Christophers

2 of 2 rapid fire guest posts from Manchester's Slow Joe

Ben Christophers' Viewfinder (Rocketeer 2005)



Also, Ben Christophers' 'Viewfinder'. I've been a fan of Christophers' sly, sideways, wired folk stylings for a long time now. This last album is lacking in both the pop-sensible joie de vie and the brazen bizzarity that previous albums seemed to flit between with abandon. It's also lacking in length, being 38 minutes, a fair chunk of which is filled up with short instrumentals (perhaps this was meant to be an EP?). Though, while this may be down in energy, the result is coherent, sophisticated and even romantic. The variety of genre influences are wild, but they are never beaten into you. This song is definitely one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, but despite the overall laziness, I don't feel that any point in the album falls into anything remotely akin to self-pity.

Hope you like them, have a good one this weekend...

• Ben Christophers - Night Monsters Mp3