TILT
The second album from Melbourne’s Confidence Man is unapologetic in its love of ’90s rave and runway music. While their 2018 debut, *Confident Music for Confident People*, fizzed away like an electro-pop firework, *TILT* instead looks to vintage UK house music (“Holiday”) and warehouse raves for inspiration. Frontwoman Janet Planet is in playful form, slinking her way around the UK-garage-esque “Toy Boy” (“They say there’s seven wonders but my toy boy makes it eight/With a face like that there’s no conversation, with an ass like that there’s no hesitation”) and proving there’s substance to her swagger on “Woman” (“I’m a woman of many words, but words do not define me”). Though the quartet found creative inspiration in the studio from Gregg Alexander (New Radicals) and U2 producer Andy Barlow, Confidence Man self-produced *TILT*, pushing their euphoric dance-pop party to another level.
The dance-pop quartet pays tribute to a canon of airhead classics on a fleet-footed record that prioritizes sheer pleasure and fun above all else.
The Brisbane band's second album is more emotionally rounded than its predecessor, but they remain ridiculous in all the right places
This jokey side project certainly has the tunes – but they couldn’t be less suited to living room listening
Their knack for incredible hooks is still there, but the effortless fun seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Four years after their painfully hip debut, Confident Music for Confident People, Australia's Confidence Man amassed even more of their titular surety, letting their guard down and fully embracing their dance roots on the celebratory Tilt.
Everyone’s favourite party band Confidence Man are bringing us back to the 90s with TILT, a snappy, good-time album with plenty of charm and wit.
Confidence Man’s TILT is a bridge between dancefloors—New York ballrooms, Berlin nightclubs and warehouse raves.
Brisbane, Australia-based Confidence Man may have begun life as a slightly tongue-in-cheek side project but their hyperactive day-glo take on electronic dance-pop certainly found its mark. The collective made up of the masked duo of Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild and fronted by the incongruously named Janet Planet and Sugar Bones were all staples of the rather more serious Brisbane psych scene at some point (see The Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective, and The Jungle Giants).
Australia's mystery-goof quartet Confidence Man unleashed a supremely confident debut in 2018, but after years of waiting, they're finally back with a '90s sheen.
Australian dance act's second is packed with brazen, unashamed good-time tunes. Album New Music review by Thomas H Green