Tyro

A tyro, as you know, is a beginner. And while this duo is hardly wet behind the ears, they made this record with the intention of starting over. Katie and Skipper Hartley, the pair who form the core of Tyro, once piloted the Fourth Ward rock combo called Toenut. Late-nineties Georgia was an incubator for bands like Servotron, Man...or Astro-man?, and Toenut, who were bent on revitalizing the concept of the rock band. Toenut for their part augmented their baroque rock with a variety of sound sources - everything from samples to hand-held tape players. The band turned out two albums of adventurous guitar-based rock that made strong showings on the CMJ and Gavin charts. Their videos turned up on 120 Minutes and MTV Europe, and the band toured the world.

After a string of tragic turns tore the band apart - one death, a few personnel departures, and everybody growing up - Katie and Skipper decided to retire Toenut and hunker down in their home studio. They emerged transformed into a pair of lab-coatted tinkerers bent on rebuilding their sound with subtractive synthesis and timestretched samples. Audiocards, then, takes the adrenalized and rhythmically playful guitar heroics that made Toenut tick and reconstructs it with sweeps, blips, and fluttering VCOs - saucy synths for noodly guitars. Points of reference could include: Television, Eno, early Pink Floyd, My Bloody Valentine. There are a few nods to contemporaries like Komeda and Stereolab. The attentive listener may even detect elements of Cluster, Neu! and This Heat.

Katie and Skipper describe the record as an expression of the sense of betrayal that accompanies growing up. But the shiny pop touches they throw in prevent it from becoming an innocence lost bummerfest. "I think this record is sad and a little bitter," says Skipper. "But no one else hears this." That's because the bile is buried in a crush of mirror-bright guitars and percolating beats. Katie's hushed, reedlike voice dispels whatever other dark clouds drift in.