Demos

Jack Rundell - The Snicks on my Mulligan

Owain Paciuszko 10/02/2009

Rating: 4/5

Hailing from Ipswich singer-songwriter Jack Rundell opens this 5-track EP with a delightfully dated electronic drum-beat as he sings the lyrics to I Tear My Hair Out (When You Walk By) with a kind of faux-country twang, somewhere between Jeffrey Lewis and Bob Dylan with arch observations in a similarly suburban surreal fashion to The Wave Pictures. It's a gloriously charming opening and as Grand Hotel opens with the line 'Driving in a rental car, paid for by the grand visar' there's an air of Stephen Malkmus whimsy added to the mix.

Though particularly lo-fi and sometimes cutesy there's a ramshackle appeal to Rundell's work that brings to mind They Might Be Giants, though sometimes gets uncomfortably close to Weird Al Yankovic, but generally there's a sincerity behind the silliness.