TICKLEY FEATHER

A nice rejoinder to not go to a gig based on disliking their Myspace tracks. Though to be fair, you could put up better songs.

TICKLEY FEATHER @ RETRO BAR, 15/1109

Annie Sachs, the name in which Tickley Feather receives pay cheques, is drunk. Not just your common-or-garden drunk either. Smashed on a molecular level. Hammered. Gone. The only surprise is that she doesn't arrive on stage with a traffic cone atop her Minnie Mouse-bowed head.



On record, TF's excursions are so way beyond the static rigidity of the pop format that drunkenness seems like the perfect distillation of her animus; besides, no one in the venue gives a hoot. It's funny. She's funny. Her banter often goes longer than some of her songs. She lights candles on her keyboard stand “because this place smells of toilets”. It really does.

Live, she's flanked by two dudes; one on guitar who flirts and laughs like a current lover, and one who broods over keyboards and samples like a lover spurned. They're winging it all the way; they grin and smile as if to say “I cannot believe we are getting away with this. This is entirely made of awesome.”

The average Tickley Feather tune is just like unearthing a damp, mildewed cassette of '80s pop hits to play back on a '90s cassette player: there's form and recognisable instruments, but it's warped and weird and a little bit sinister. Nostalgic too, if you're of the last generation of cassette mixtapes: lost sentiments buried in corruptible technology.



It's the unintentional comedic flourishes that linger longest; unaffected, a little bit vulnerable and completely human. The mindset of Tickley Feather may be related to the bottle of scotch she carries on stage, but the warmth she generates could never be faked. An original.