Review: “Tunde” by Tunde (CD, 2004)

Today’s Pop Rescue is the debut 2004 solo album Tunde by British singer and songwriter, and Lighthouse Family vocalist, Tunde Baiyewu. Will this album be a Great Romantic collection of songs, or will you need an Anaesthetic to get through it? Read on…

Tunde - Tunde (2004) album. — Tunde – Tunde (2004) album.

The album opens with some wonderful acoustic guitars of Passing The Hours. Tunde’s soft and soulful vocals are soon in on the mic, and these sit perfectly alongside the gentle strumming. Strings and backing vocals join in as the song builds, and this just helps to give a nice contrasting undercurrent to his rich vocals.

That runs into Great Romantic, and this lifts the pace a bit, resulting in a nice mellow foot-tapper of a song. Tunde once again makes this sound like an easy breeze of a song to sing. This track stood as the sole single from this album but sadly it failed to chart in the UK.

Letting Me Down Gently builds on this up-tempo feeling, and we get some wonderful vocal harmonies between Tunde and backing vocalist, who I think is Catherine Feeny throughout most of this album. These work well as the song builds with strings, piano, and beats.

Next is Miles Ahead Of Me and this gives us a slower song in which Tunde’s reflective lyrics give us vocals that seem to wallow mostly in the lower more bass-y notes. Whilst the song is nice, it steps down a bit from the others presented here so far.

Anaesthetic is next, starting with some delicate acoustic guitars and pianos as a soft snare taps away in the background. Tunde’s vocals here really hold the notes beautifully in this sombre song. The song grows steadily, bringing in the strings as Tunde’s vocals become more emotive – and he sounds somewhat heartbroken by the end, finishing the song in Yoruba as he says goodbye.

Guitars drop in with I Have Never Walked Alone, immediately changing the tone. Tunde returns here with his stronger, rich tones. Whilst Tunde is co-writer on most of this album, here he is the sole writer, and there’s a wonderful sense of ‘fitting’ here between the lyrics and his delivery. It also strangely sounds familiar despite being original. A great little track.

Following that is Our History, which gives us tinkling pianos, brushed snares, and gives us a much more higher-range Tunde vocal. This is a bit of a jazzy number, and it saunters along with great ease, as Tunde sings about history and freedom (courtesy of further Yoruba language lyrics).

Next is Shouldn’t Be Like This (According To Fairness) which momentarily reminds me of Craig David’s 7 Days at different points in the track. It’s a really nice upbeat song though, with some funky guitars thrown in from time to time. This probably would have been a good candidate as a single.

I Can’t Make The World Disappear is next, and this gives us waves of piano, drums, and guitars, and whilst Tunde seems to have a lot of lyrics to deliver, he does at times get a bit lost in the mix and probably would have benefited from some more contrasting backing vocals to help lift him up.

That leads on to Cover Me. We’re back down to melodic tones, and in the start of this song, it’s the first time I feel like I could be listening to a Seal song instead, and Tunde delivers this summertime-feeling song with great ease.

The album closes with the brushed snares of Long Way Home, a ‘UK bonus track’. Here, the Tim Davies Big Band ushers us towards the vocals with the brass and woodwind section. Tunde sounds in his element here, flanked by this band, and he gives each word crisply as if enjoying a fine food with each note.

Tunde’s lead single ‘Great Romantic’ (2004).

Verdict

Over all, this album is a warm, rich, musical ride, but its mellowness results in few stand-out moments.

There are some lovely songs here, with Great Romantic, Letting Me Down Gently, I Have Never Walked Alone, and Shouldn’t Be Like This (According To Fairness) leading the way. Final track Long Way Home also gives us some wonderful big band sounds too. There’s also lots of ‘nice’ songs here too with a complete absence of stinkers – which is good, but it means that there’s little range to the songs that allow for a really strong song to stand out.

As a result, the album does feel much like a sort of sleepier ‘missing’ Lighthouse Family album, where there’s nothing bad and plenty of ‘nice’.