Tanukichan’s Radiolove EP is so named for the connection made between a listener and a musician. Radiolove materializes in those moments when your favorite song, most definitely written just for you, is being sung, and everything’s okay. Everything will be okay. This feeling comes effortlessly with these four new Tanukichan songs. Vibrant and subdued, cold and hot, this collection evokes the mixed emotions only music can express so well. Hannah van Loon is the being behind the songs and Radiolove is her solo debut: four songs of in-the-red guitar fuzz matched with astute timing and beautiful melodies.
The opener “Enough” is a rhythmically hypnotic song featuring My Bloody Valentine-like charges of noise. “I took everything, everything I could/ don't know if it's enough for me,” van Loon sings, calling to mind a certain assertive selfishness that can thrive in the midst of hopelessness. Some of the EP’s lyrics are about relationships, some about music and life, but “mostly I want to convey an emotion or a state of mind, and not necessarily a specific story,” van Loon says. “And More” morphs from a classic mid-20th-century pop song to a Tom Petty-meets-Pixies climax. The title track expresses the joy of communion in music and the soundtrack is justly blissful. The song pairs the mournful distortion of The Radio Dept. with the cautiously optimistic melody of a George Harrison tune.
“The songs were written at a time when I needed to break out of the routine I was in and do me,” van Loon says. Based in Oakland, van Loon toured with the group Trails and Ways for four years before departing to focus on Tanukichan. Van Loon’s band includes drummer Aaron Gold and bassist Scott Brown, both members of Astronauts, etc. Company Records head Chaz Bundick (Toro Y Moi, Les Sins) produced and recorded the trio in his home studio. Bundick was able to capture the raw feel of the live band sound with crystal clarity. As a producer, Bundick helped cement the tone and style of the songs, pushing in a shoegaze direction with heavy guitar tones and some extra synthesizer.
