- On his new track "Space Case," Johannes Auvinen, AKA Tin Man, drawls the following line through a vocoder: "You've got your head in the clouds, touch your feet down to the ground, we miss you here..." After hearing his latest record, fans of Tin Man's early work might find that line weirdly poignant; the Finnish-born, California-raised and Vienna-based artist was once a champion of DJ-friendly acid house, but his last few records have slipped further and further into leftfield. Much like Wasteland, his mini-album from 2008, Scared shows him slinking through one eerie dreamscape after another, with nothing as danceable as last year's "Constant Confusion" in sight. Barring his one full-on drone record, it's probably Tin Man's most challenging effort yet, and also his most daring.
The most immediately grabbing tune on Scared is without a doubt the title track (which, if you're interested, is available for free with the artist's permission on Little White Earbuds). Tin Man is a master of noir-ish suspense, and this one shows his talents at full tilt: from beginning to end, he flirts with a punchy minimal beat that never quite delivers, clicking into place for one bar and falling apart the next, over and over again. This tension is enhanced by some sleep-deprived chords and murky background sounds, and somewhere, very far back, one of his old acid synth lines.
As on the rest of the record, Auvinen sounds cool and calm, but also in the furthest reach of exhaustion, slurring each half-sung line as if with heavy eyelids. His lyrics are haunting and poetic, and provided you can deal with their broodiness, very impressive. "Zone Unknown" sounds a bit like Soul Capsule's "Waiting 4 a Way," but with lyrics that sound totally oblivious to dance music's usual tropes ("We don't ever really lose ourselves, now do we?") "Birds" ticks along with an eerie lullaby-like quality, while "Self Help" feeds a litany of oblique advice through a vocoder, conjuring Kubrick-esque discomfort. On "Defendant," the record's most austere track, Auvinen repeats the line "defendant… please rise" over a menacing drone and distant pulse.
These deep and dark musings are balanced out (somewhat) by tracks like "Fish," a languid but groovy breakbeat number. "Stand by Me" is the most grounded tune here, with a fairly normal techno beat and romantic lyrics, but it's also by far the weakest. Though the results can be quite drab and depressing, Auvinen is at his best when following his oddest impulses.
Tracklist A1 Scared
A2 Stand By Me
A3 Space Case
A4 Birds
B1 Fish
B2 Zone Unknown
B3 Self Help
B4 Defendents