Twink

The King of the Toy Piano has done it again. You know, when Twink released his first CD, most level-headed thinkers said, "this collection of tunes done totally on toy piano is pretty cool, but only as a novelty record — he can't do it again." Except that he did. Then he did it again. And, if you can believe it, yet again. Ice Cream Truckin' is Twink's FOURTH release, and it's every bit as delightful, sarcastic and invincible as Bugs Bunny on a bender. If the CD's title didn't clue you into its musical motif, the first track will — this is "Softee," Twink's own wonky rendition of the traditional Mister Softee ice cream truck song. It starts off with a simple music box tinkle before ramping up a notch toward something that's like Japanese video game music. "Slush Bunny," with its infuriatingly familiar melody, sounds like something The Kinks would have written if they'd been locked inside a Fisher Price factory for a week. On "Peanut Butter Crunch" there is, indeed, more crunch as some deeper tones and crash-ier effects are used, punctuated with what may or may not be the Speak & Spell cow going "moo." Ice Cream Truckin' clocks in at just under an hour, and each of the nineteen tracks is produced by a different person. That's nineteen different takes on toy piano songs, each with an ice cream themed title. Not unlike working your way through a Triple-Trouble-Super-Fudge-Delight, this CD just keeps getting better and better. Some of the producers, such as Dom Limpio, take their duties a little further than others. "Sugar Cone," the Limpio track, gets down and dirty with fuzz, psychotic swirls of sound, distortion and a vocal sample diabolically repeating "I'm glad you like the ice cream, boys" in a way that suggests the raspberry swirl may be laced with arsenic. Things also get a little manic on the Wendy Mittelstadt track "Nutty Buddy," an electronic shuffle of sorts that sounds, at times, like "It's a Small World" if one of the "worlds" was "dance club." Though it starts out with a gentle plinkety-plink melody, "Rocket Pop," takes a hard left turn into sinister after a single sample of a child saying "Mom, the ice cream man's here!" The rest of "Rocket Pop" could have been a Danny Elfman contribution, which is a huge compliment to this track's producer/arranger, Mochipet. And finally, "Ice Cream Headache" is an out-and-out rocker with searing guitars and gong provided by Dan Brockman and Tanya Paglia (The Hidden). As a special added bonus, Twink's website is as much fun as the music itself. I even downloaded my own ice cream truck model, and a coloring page. Who doesn't love coloring? But the most fun is a picture gallery of Twink's collection of toy pianos, organs, bells and other delightful noisemaking toys. Some are brightly colored plastic Disney-like devices, while others are salvaged small-scale vintage instruments. It's a great website, but I wish that there were more liner notes for the songs. I want to know which sounds are being made by which toy piano! Maybe Twink can make a little applet that says "click to play this toy." All told, this Twink guy might be our generation's Carl Stalling — I have a feeling that we ain't seen nothing yet.