Confidence Man: Tilt | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- The thirty year rule is a sometime adhered to practice on the release of government papers – the thoughts and decisions of an almost by-gone age get an airing when some of the main players aren’t around to suffer embarrassment, or if they are, they might be too senile or forgotten to be that worried by the revelations. Contemporary music has, since pretty much the start of the modern pop era worked to a similar rule – more so the twenty year gap, at times, between the first iteration of a trend and the revival (example – Prince & The Revolution’s period that paid homage to the peace, love and harmony era of the 1960s).

Three decades into the Twenty-First Century of the Common Era it’s fitting that the '90s – particularly the first half of that decade gets its chance for a makeover by artists who were barely alive when a new wave of music swept the world. No, not grunge – that revival is already happening (or did it ever go away, judging by the style of so many young “indie-like” bands). The dance music explosion of the '90s, particularly European hit makers, many of them one hit wonders and as cross-culturally combined as any modern street food market. House music, growing out of the death of disco and the techno sharpness of Hi-NRG flowered into a dance floor scene of diverse proportions – Snap!, 2Unlimited, Culture Beat, Haddaway, Twenty 4 Seven and Deee-Lite are just a few of the names that flared briefly and filled party playlists - before digital playlists were a thing.

It’s tempting to think that when they were creating their second album Tilt Confidence Man stumbled across someone’s CD single collection from that period. However, knowing the work they offered on their debut Confident Music for Confident People, Tilt is the natural progression and didn’t really need any outside inspiration to get going. The four members – all working under quirky pseudonyms – vocalist Janet Planet occasional, vocalist and dancer Sugar Bones and the two drivers of the sounds behind the front duo, forever masked and mysterious Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild, offer up twelve tracks of varying influences, mostly of the '90s variety but without sounding too derivative and thus making it a pointless and boring exercise in musical expression away from their more “serious”, mostly Brisbane based bands, The Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective and The Jungle Giants

Woman is a very Chaka Khan like opener to the album with Janet’s seductive vocals promising some hard yards for anyone who misinterprets what she’s about, for she’s the “fire AND the flame”. Grooving on to Feels Like A Different Thing is pure banger and could have spurted out of the Eurodisco scene of the '90s – it’s no wonder Confidence Man have found a burgeoning fan base in Europe. The one track where Janet gives Sugar Bones some space, What I Like, is a sugar pop stomper with a call-response verse that will go down a treat at festival performances across the northern hemisphere summer for sure.

The first single Holiday was released at the start of the 2021-22 Australian summer and it's full-on sunshine for all its near five minute runtime – keep it handy if the winter blues get you down. Toy Boy has a slightly trap-ish, slightly drum n bass-y, slightly R & B groove down the line from a Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis studio session. There is more than a whiff of the queen herself – Madonna – in a couple of tracks, with Vogue like chord structures and rhythms in Lovin U Is Easy, right down to the finger snaps on Break It Bought It! There’s a nod to a later '90's vibe with the faux-Caribbean Push It Up which could have been a hit for Vengaboys if it had been around twenty-five years ago. There’s even a small hat-tip to the late '90's Australian dance duo Madison Avenue when Janet goes full coco-bananas on Angry Girl.

Some music snobs might sniff at a band that “hides” behind jokey names (bet those same people don’t cock a snook at TISM - and it’s not too hard to find the real names and backgrounds of the four Confident ones either) and, yes, the band admits they started the project a good half decade or so ago as a bit of a joke to make “disposable dance music”, however, they are damn good at it. Disposable products are rightly frowned on in the suffering climate crisis we’ve visited upon ourselves but recycling and repurposing things that still have use and can lift us out of the two-years-and-counting depressive existence a pandemic, corrupt politics and a megalomaniac Vlad the Enabler have piled on us, get your ears into Tilt. Your feet, hips and smiles will follow.

- Blair Martin.