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12 Stone Toddler
"The Toddlers bag is an amalgamation of clever and smooth jazz styles - big band, swing, lounge - implemented with a demented rock band's set-up and ideologies, a love of big riffs, grooves and technical embellishments. It's a big music which is high on storytelling and good-time fun. There's no real properly contemporary reference points but you can't fail to recognise an influence of the world of Mike Patton, whether it's coming out of the vocal stylings or in the hints of Mr Bungle in the music. There's perhaps hints of Patton's label's Tango Saloon in its keyboard-led exotica but the modern references don't strike to the heart of the music, and it's not just a Patton template, though he'd probably appreciate all of the components making up the finished product. There's heavy doses of the grooves and adventurousness of Prince; the upbeat experiments of Zappa, embracing the cheese while picking it apart; and the vocals and swinging sounds are indebted to the pre-60's bar rooms, cocktail lounges and cabaret circles: Picture this, you're at a casino and your lucks in, you're smiling, and a diamante riff hits in with some avid crooning, a groove enters and your nights just hit the big time. That's 12 Stone Toddler, though not all the time. At other points gypsy jams take over from energetic late-60s French soundtracks, the big band riff could be accompanied by rhythmic speak-singing, soaring melodical heights, deep, loving booms or harsh shouts, and there's always the knowledge that at any point storming distortion might well turn the whole fairytale into a nightmare."
Phil Hoile - Zap Bang Magazine
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