Tin Sparrow - Oxford Art Factory (September 16)

As a part of the Oxford Art Factory's free gallery nights, Sydney newcomer's Tin Sparrow played a short set showcasing the tunes set to make up their upcoming debut release. As Max Easton writes, they're set for bigger things to come.

Modern times can be incredibly difficult times to crack as an unestablished musician on the best of days. At the very best of times, you're facing off against a music industry that is completely saturated with talent competing for the same contracts, gigs, and radio play as you. At the very worst of times, even after getting a band together, recording a few tracks and having everything down pat, you're still at the mercy of the sound desk, the obnoxious tall guy down front or any number of variables that you just...couldn't...even...conceive of. So it's a daunting place to come from early on, and for an act like Tin Sparrow - so new that they've still got that sweet smell coming off the dashboard - it seems to be more of a reality than something that tasks them. After all, they'd just scored themselves a short slot at the Oxford Art Factory, a venue which, to a degree, brings its own audience with it; and after the house music raised and they'd packed up their shit, there were a hundred or so new fans left in their wake.

Hailing from Sydney, Tin Sparrow are a four-piece that describe themselves as happy folk for happy people...but in no way are they the kind of smile-so-bright optimists that that description seems to elicit. They could turn a smile on a cynic and do so with a brand of pop flavoured folk-rock that walks a trail trodden by Australian acts like Angus & Julia Stone, Boy & Bear and The Middle East with no pretension whatsoever. At the Oxford Art Factory to a surprisingly vibrant crowd, they pulled out a mostly unmarred performance that cemented their position as a serious concern for Australian music fans.

Starting off with their much circulated track The Boat (which you can stream here), they beganf with a bang, the sound desk predictably lagging with some volume issues for both guitars before finishing off leaving the gathered crowd in impressed applause leading their 'this gig was for free?' facial expressions. They debuted a couple of other tracks -including the now soulful Down - all of which went over well, but didn't quite dissipate the predictable murmured discussions of a free gig crowd. It wasn't until the Magic Numbers-esque duet, Bricks - with frontman Matt Amery singing against Sonja Van Hummel on keys - that the crowd was completely silenced. Lyrically, it was a story you've heard before, girl leaves boy, boy sees girl with new boy...boy writes mournful folk song, keyboard player fills a verse with a stunning female return, song delivered...but with a form and delivery that far superseded its subject. However, as beautiful a song as it was, it was also host to a moment that any new act dreads...the unpredictable venue fuck up. With the Oxford Art Factory background visuals of cult film clips running in the background to varying congruity, it wasn't until the night's most beautiful moment that the background visuals happened to feature their most poorly timed feature. A man stark naked, with a furiously dancing penis shaking all over the screen that backed Tin Sparrow; dead centre in the middle of a mournful chorus.

This is the sort of shit that seems to happen when everything else is working just fine. Of course, set closer Fool's Gold (possibly the song with the most potential for this band) managed to have an erupting volcano time itself perfectly in the visuals with its careening crescendo, so while it probably evened out in the end, you still don't want your audience riotously laughing while you're at your most earnest.

With their first couple of tracks mastered and on the web, and a couple of gigs under their belt, Tin Sparrow are already showing that they've got a wealth of potential for the future. Short of calling them the next big thing, they're certainly on track to be the next something, and once their material has the creases ironed out and that first EP lands on our shelves, there's no doubt that they're bound for something great...pending the interruption of a flailing penis of course.