The singular-genre band is dying. Lift up your glass in a toast to the days of individual acts being labeled “Rock”, or “Country”, or “Jazz”. In this new age of New Age, everything old is new again, but it’s somehow different and familiar. It’s the new same old sound. And while I may want some of that old time of rock & roll once in a while, I’m at the front of the line for acts that change and fuse things as masterfully and beautifully as The Tontons.
Clockwise from left: Golden EP, Sea and Stars EP, The Tontons LP (download card)
I came upon The Tontons (pronounced tawn-tawns, as in Tauntans, the Hoth dwelling creatures from The Empire Strikes Back) almost by accident. When I attended the 2011 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase this weekend, I knew I could expect to hear some pretty good up-and-coming bands from the Houston scene. I did NOT expect to come out a newly converted member to the rapidly growing cult of a local band that not only doesn’t sound quite like anything else from our area, they barely sound like anything else from our time.
The Tontons’ sound can be reduced to a blend of jazz, psychadelic rock, indie rock, and a hint of blues here and there. But to simply spell out those fused sounds would be selling the band short; like all good ideas, The Tontons’ have managed to put something together greater than the sum of its parts. Somehow, this mishmash of different musical styles fit. They fit together so well here, so inconceivably, that I’m convinced any lesser bands would simply make a musical mess in trying to successfully duplicate this sound.
If I sound like I’m hypnotized, I sort of am. Their performance captivated me.
Seeing The Tontons take the stage, and having never heard them before, I didn’t know what to make of them. Bassist Tom Nguyen and guitarist Adam Martinez started bringing out their instruments, looking a whole lot like some of today’s newer, more geek-chic rockers. Drummer Justin Martinez kept to himself in the back, as drummers are wont to do. And Singer Asli Omar got on stage in a flowy dress, and I didn’t know if I would be hearing pop rock or punk or ska or whatever.
Singer Asli Omar
Then the lights went down. And Omar, with a very soft, very bubble-gum voice, did the usual “thank you” and “we hope you enjoy the show” that you’d expect. The sound kicked in. Nguyen started bassing, Martinez’s guitar started to guitar, Justin’s drums started pounding, and Omar transformed into a soulful apparition, a spirit. She didn’t so much dance on stage as she glided on it. The geek-chic rockers weren’t that at all, channeling equal parts Hendrix and Pixies. Omar couldn’t be further from the bubble-gum, as she somehow managed to (somehow) mix Joplin and Norah Jones with a dash of Macy Gray. And all that’s probably not accurate, but I dare you to listen and try to come up with some better way of describing them.
There’s something mesmerizing, something hypnotic about the music and performance by the band. There’s a sexiness, an intimacy to it that isn’t immediately apparent. In an odd way, it almost shouldn’t sound as good as it does. Omar sang and floated across the stage without any shoes on, the guys were up on stage playing after a 23-hour straight drive from California to Houston, so they were completely tired or wired or both, and I couldn’t tell if anything being put together on stage was intentional or not. It almost sounds like it should be falling apart, like it’s almost too loose to possibly sustain itself…thankfully, it never did. It’s that sort of mastery of the unhinged why the music comes across as unique as it does.
All I knew was that I had to hear more. This one show wouldn’t cut it. So once all the tripping out was done, I picked up the two five-track EPs and a download card for their self-titled debut. Y’know, because I’m a reviewer guy. I had to do it. For science.
I first jumped into the Sea and Stars EP, as I loved their performance of the song “Atlas” during the concert. Sure enough, the sound that oh so baffled me came across my car’s speakers without a difference in quality or tone. The raw earnestness of Omar’s voice was loud and clear as she chanted “I will make this better, she’d say ‘I will take it away with my hands, with my hands, with my hands, with my hands” before the band brought a soaring musical break, which would become a recurring theme for the band. After “Atlas”, Sea and Stars goes into the title track and develops more of an edge. This is one of the better demonstrations of the near-vertical slope The Tontons climb from a smooth, jazzy set to a distorted, angry soul rock. Omar’s absolutely sultry “You promise me the world/You promise me the sea and the stars/You take me by the hand/When you show me the promised land/ You take me by the hand/When you show me/Light” is followed by a guitar straight out of the sixties. And if that itself weren’t enough variety, the next track “Jazz June” goes into a lighter, more “summer” uptempo rhythm while Omar directly contrasts that with coos of “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” going as far as to say that she is “So sick of sunshine” and ultimately “I’ll never fall in love again.” Bitterness never sounded so good. 
After I went through Sea and Stars, I dove into their eponymous debut LP. “Kaleidoscope” is a track I keep coming back to, as it has a great lead from a very rock & roll lead into a more full sounding chorus line. The fourth track “Leon” adds in hand claps to the equation, slightly breaking the slow burn style in a welcome way, before going into a heartful “I used to say/I’ll never never never never never never never never/Be that way/But…” This track, slightly more than others on the album, haunts me in the best way possible. The track “Dancing” shows how friendly the Tontons’ sound can be to those who stick to top 40. With it’s great foot tapping beat and absolutely seductive calls of “I’ll fix you/If you let me/Won’t you let me?”, the song just begs to be turned up on the volume dial. This is a sound that can be heard tweaked and perfected in the title track of Golden, their most recent release.
“Golden” is, perhaps, my favorite track from the band to date. It has a truly refined sound, which is an odd thing to praise in a band that so deftly breaks any sort of “traditional” sound. It’s the kind of track that would please the most critical music snob and money-hungry business exec alike. The track veers closer to the mainstream without losing the now-distinct sound that The Tontons have cultivated. The song manages to, as the song states, be “shallow/And silly/And oh so conniving” in a really fun, really car-windows-down jam worthy. It’s the kind of song I would play as a palate cleanser once I’ve had my fill of a Tontons album, on a Tontons album. Perfect. On the same EP, “Never Never” showcases Omar’s voice in a slower, more jazzy soul style track that is easy to keep playing in the background. Omar doesn’t let up, declaring “You owe me something kind of wonderful” from the ambient sound the band produces. It’s a treat, a song that wouldn’t be out of place in a piano bar.
I’ve absolutely fallen for The Tontons. Houston has developed quite a reputation for its bustling hip-hop and rap scene, and while that reputation is well deserved, more acts like The Tontons can shift that into making our city a music scene to be reckoned with. As for the Tontons, I’d expect their already rapidly growing fanbase can only snowball into bigger, better things.
Besides, if the song “So Young” is to believed, the band has “Got to have/Everything.”
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