​Northants electronic duo Tvål discuss debut LP

​Comprising of Dean Cumming and Tom Wright, the pair formed Tvål following the split of their former band - Kettering psych act Thee Telepaths.

The eight-track album was released in February with the pair most recently showcasing tracks from the record in the county when they opened for Japanese Television at The Black Prince.

Talking about the reaction the record has received, Tom said: “We’re really pleased. It took a long time to make and was really a bit of a departure from what we’d done in our previous band so it was a little bit daunting in some respects, although the gigs had been going down well.

“The feedback’s been amazing though – it seems like people who have bought it are playing it quite a lot.”

The pair started writing the album in early 2022, although some of the ideas for tracks including ‘Black Notes’ and ‘Vanishing Point’ have their roots in the late 1990s.

They started recording the following year in their own studio - undertaking both the mixing and mastering themselves before turning to a friend for assistance towards the end of the project.

Dean said: “We spoke about following our love of electronic music before investing in some new gear, then began trading ideas back and forth.

“Before too long we’d written and recorded a demo, forming the nucleus for several of the songs on the album.

“We’ve worked hard to evolve our sound, subsequently the songs have been given various makeovers.

“We decided on going it alone with the entire recording and production process, allowing us more time and space to add greater character and colour to the edits.”

While Moog bass and 808s provide a foundation for the record, Dean explains lyrically it’s less conceptual than their previous work together.

“I wanted to describe more trivial yet emotional observations, but in a shorter form,” he explains.

“Tom has managed to capture the mood in a way that completely compliments each theme.”

The eight-track album includes the tracks ‘Vanishing Point’, ‘Circles’ Barefoot In The Dark’, ‘Jazz’, ‘The Garden’, ‘Kluas Weiss’, ‘Black Notes’ and Broken Frames’.

While hesitant to pick a favourite on the record, Tom picks ‘The Garden’ and ‘Klaus Weiss’ as two which stand-out to him.

He said: “‘The Garden’ is significant in that it was the first one we wrote and it started us on the path of this sound which was totally different to anything we’d ever done before.

“Similarly, ‘Klaus Weiss’ is an important one – it’s named after a German library musician whose track ‘Survivor’ was a big influence on the sound early on and I really love the space on that which was again somewhere we’d never been before.”

For Dean, he highlights ‘Vanishing Point’ and ‘Jazz’ adding, “The riffs and melodies have remained constant throughout but the newer arrangements took the songs in a direction which has been exciting to be part of.”

Dean and Tom both originally played in Thee Telepaths – which the latter explains started in 2012 “with a bunch of dads with kids in the same class at school,”.

The band released a number of EPs and in 2019 the album ‘The Velvet Night’. They amicably split in 2022.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the pair had been emailing ideas back and forth using Garageband – some of which was originally intended for Thee Telepaths and some were other ideas.

Tom explains: “At the same time, we’d gotten into the idea of synths and were in Northampton one Saturday afternoon when three pints in it seemed like a great idea to buy a drum machine.

“Next thing you know we’re buying keyboards and samplers and things.”

This collection of electronics is on full display when the pair perform live, with equipment and wires dominating the stage.

Explaining about performing live, Tom said: “To begin with it was four synths, a drum machine, a sequencer, a guitar and vocals, which is what we were writing with.

“Having played in what was very much a live band before, it made sense to us not to use computers onstage but to play the stuff live on the gear we were constructing it on.

“As we wrote the album we updated the sequences and the live synth parts to be able to be more hands on with the electronics when playing it live.

“We added a second synth at Dean’s end and a couple of samplers so that we could replay textures and some lines that we overdubbed on the album that we wouldn’t have enough hands to play in a gig scenario, which gives us a lot to think about.

“It’s occasionally stressful and could go wrong at any moment, but is enormous fun – which is what playing live should be.”

Turning to the influences behind Tvål, the pair cite the krautrock genre alongside acts including Sun Ra, DJ Shadow, Depeche Mode, Can and The The.

The front cover of Tvål’s debut album depicts Queen’s Square in Corby town centre in the 1970s and is based on a photo taken from outside a shop where both Dean and Tom bought records as teenagers.

“It’s originally from a postcard and the place hasn’t looked much like that for a long time,” explains Tom.

“If you look closely, I put a frosted glass effect on it – so it’s a bit like looking through a window into the past, which is a bit like us using these deliberately old-sounding instruments to make something new.”

Turning to their plans for 2025, the pair’s plan is simple – to play as much as possible and for as many people as possible to hear their debut record.

Tvål’s debut album is available digitally and on vinyl via https://crackedplastic.bandcamp.com/album/tv-l

For more information, visit https://www.instagram.com/tval_band