With an unending slew of ‘talent’ shows constantly choking the airwaves, the tendency to dote on the tiniest shred of infant skill has gone from mildly amusing to downright grating. Any inclination to group Brooklyn’s Tiny Masters Of Today, (Ava, 13, and Ivan, 15), with these novelty acts, however, should be cast aside quicker than the latest George Samson DVD, for the only difference their minimal years make is that ‘Skeletons’’ already obvious brilliance becomes almost depressingly so for anyone already past puberty.
Forget any cutesy shtick, these two schooled themselves under the most wayward of mentors; their core text presumably How To Screw The System Pt I by Ms K Dawson and Mr T Moore.
With their second effort the garage punk mentality remains, but with an increasingly inquisitive streak; ‘Two Dead Soldiers’ is a riled Moldy Peaches, robbed of their twee sensibilities and scrapping with Devo, while new single ‘Pop Chart’ tears apart the celebrity cult in wry fashion, adopting a fuzzy blend of sprightly melody and lyrical damnation.
Cleverest of all is ‘Abercrombie Zombie’, with its clarion call of “Oh my God! We should totally go on Wikipedia!”, that succinctly displays the band’s knack for both rooting themselves firmly in their peer group and rejecting almost everything it predictably stands for. ‘Skeletons’ is playful yet cynical, catchy but ramshackle; it is, essentially, a far more consummate effort than logic dictates. So, though it’ll be a while before they shake off the inevitable age fixation, TMOT have produced an album that’s a stroke of genius regardless of age. They may be tiny, but they’re certainly masterful.
Lisa Wright
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