CUTTINGS QUOTES PHOTOS FAQ
(thanks to Ballagroove on the Isle Of Man for compiling these,
which we stole off their website)
Sunday Times (Top 5 Album of the Year 2003)
"Fantastically intricate masterpieces... utterly
indispensable... genius... a modern-day Blake."
The Guardian (4 Stars)
"The genius of Chris T-T’s songwriting is his ability
to humanise even the most outlandish conceits. They seem
instead like brilliant ideas that no-one else could’ve
come up with."
NME (8/10)
"A capital-centric folk wonder, he specialises in finding
romance in the tiniest details of urban living, crystallising
them in string-powered urban folk. Funny, touching and smart."
Time Out: London (Critics' Choice, 2003)
"The joy of Flaming Lips and the humanity of Ray Davies.
A heartening, hopeful, sad record."
The Independent (Gig of the Week)
"A national gem of a songwriter."
Q Magazine
"T-T has a knack for making the mundane seem joyous.
A combination of Badly Drawn Boy’s ramshackle charm
and the observational wit of Jarvis Cocker."
MOJO
"Surreal tales and a friendly but firm political clout.
Check out this singular talent."
RollingStone.com
"Very, very brilliant..."
London Evening Standard
"Lyrics of rare sensitivity and wit, kitchen sink songwriting
with a killer line in black humour. An unseemly talent."
The Big Issue (4 Stars)
"A 21st Century take on The Kinks, covering many musical bases.
Yet the resulting collection remains encouragingly coherent.
Chris T-T should be heartily saluted."
The Morning Star
"An ambitious meditation on life, love, war and personal
responsibility. The wittiest, wisest and downright strangest
record I’ve heard in years."
Manchester Evening News (4 stars)
"Chris T-T’s fourth album is a revelation. A storytelling sojourn
through the big city set to queasy pop themes. How often do you
listen with rapt attention to the lyrics of a pop song?"
The Independent ('Single of the Week' twice)
"Highly memorable, hilariously vitriolic. A real joy."
NME
"A wry smile, a white knuckle ride and builds to a blistering climax,
Chris T-T mixes a damned compulsive rock cocktail."
I HELD HER IN MY ARMS
"Genius! More powerful than amyl nitrate,
more enjoyable than being Lucky Pierre."
Sunday Times (Top 5 Album of the Year 2001)
"The finest (and maddest) British pop album of the year.
Music so liberatingly, off-centredly, life-affirmingly free,
it never had moorings to slip. Outstanding. Buy this record."
Time Out: London (Critics' Choice 2001)
"Thank God for the 'The 253'! This is such a close and intimate record
you can smell the toast and bus fumes. Its sincerity is so sharp,
it feels like the watery sting in your eyes as a tube rushes past.
Satirical, brittle and brutally intelligent lo-fi guitar pop. A work
of wit and understated wisdom."
PopMatters.com
"Rising English singer T-T continues to win plaudits
from the quality press and his appearance at CMJ in New York
confirms his ascent. Four albums in and a wholesale band change
- trio to quintet - broadens the options, while the production
values of this collection raise the stakes. But it is the songs,
rather than technology or virtuosity, that win the day.
T-T’s quirky Anglo drawl tells tales about the Thames, a motif
that curls through this adventure, but also lends its emotional
weight to anti-war epic 'Cull' and a re-telling of the Frankenstein
myth, '7 Hearts'. As pure a slice of pop as you’ll hear in 2003.
Frail, humane and life-size, this is a CD to treasure."
KultureFlash.net
"Chris T-T is a national treasure. A man whose lyrics deal
with the sublime in the mundane and whose tunes are made up
of fizzing melodies and instantly rocking rhythms. He deserves
to be huge but his underdog position allows him to write songs
like new single 'Eminem Is Gay'."
DrownedInSound.com
"'The '253' is a low budget high vocabulary masterpiece.
Split between daydreaming fantasy and cynical realism, this
is a charming, rough'n'ready journey into the indifferent
insincerity of the English psyche."
Yorkshire Evening News
"This Boswellian diarist of the day-to-day is a skewed observer
of city life and love’s revolving doors. A DIY Pulp, a more
together Syd Barrett, T-T writes of a London bus route, one
hedgehog’s lucky escape, Tony Robinson’s Time Team and of being
'defeated' by Daily Mail readers. Truly terrific, T-T should be
the Ray Davies of new millennium London."
TNT
"Genius voice of London, T-T can be Belle & Sebastian sweet
or Queens Of The Stone Age menacing. Overflowing with intricate
stories, lost souls, black humour, social conscience and a
child-like imagination run wild."
Logo Magazine
"The honesty and generosity of Chris T-T shines out of
every moment of this fourth album; each more lovely than
the one before. Clever, funny, individual, poetic and
very, very poignant. The album benefits from sublime
orchestral arrangements, Chris’s uniquely oblique approach
to songwriting and his charming refusal to strike a single
rock vocal pose. Every single track is a joy and the
conclusion to final track 'Oil' is as thrilling a coda
as you’ll hear on any album this, or any year."
Ad-Hoc (Cambridgeshire)
"Chris T-T re-ignited the working class romance in me
and I’m grateful to him for it. He oozes a confidence
and passionately means every strikingly honest line.
Imagine if Billy Bragg has been sent to singing lessons
instead of socialist worker meetings and you’re getting
the idea. This is songwriting at its British best with lines
that hit home with startling regularity. Add to this a comic
touch that fidgets playfully alongside the serious stuff
and you have a winning combination. The boy’s a bit special."
The Guardian
"Chris T-T creates fragmented songs that verge on the cool side
of lo-fi without losing a love for pop. He’s the Phil Redmond
of the DIY music scene, sweet on the outside, bitter at the centre.
Simple, often humourous gems with twisted lyrics. His voice is
Billy Bragg without the affectation but has power when he chooses
to unleash it. And he can rock when he wants to, as guitars screech
and build to a blistering climax."