Twee, or whatever you wish to call it, has always been hopelessly out of time. Kids in cardigans can look back to the halcyon days of the famous C86 tape and artists like Television Personalities and Felt, but let’s face it—in 1986 there were a lot more people listening to Madonna than anything else.

So when Tamas Wells’ early EPs hit a handful of Melbourne indie record stores in 2002, at the peak of the “rock is the new rock” craze, it was inevitable that they would slip under the radar, destined to be heard by only a few aficionados. There was a smattering of street press coverage, but not a lot. I suspect no one in the cosy little four-piece quit their day jobs.

And yet Tamas Wells’ Stitch in Time EP had a profound effect on me. I was so moved by the delicate beauty of their CD, I bashed off a review of the show and sent it to local street mag Beat, who never ran it. Such is the indifference of the world to this type of music (or possibly to the ramblings of aspiring rock critics!)

They have a new album (their second), A Plea en Vendredi, out on Popboomerang records, and it’s predictably excellent. There’s the same lilting, swaying acoustic pop sounds and the same sweetly androgynous vocals that I remember so well. It has the folksy, whimsical feel of latter-day Yo La Tengo and makes you imagine the band wearing cardigans and jamming by a living-room fire.

Lead singer and songwriter Wells writes gentle stories about ordinary people preserving their dignity in a chaotic world. On this album, songs such as “The Telemarketer Resigns” and “I’m Sorry That The Kitchen Is On Fire” continue this tradition dating back to “Beauty Cream” from Stitch in Time and its voyage into the world of an anally-retentive girl and her boyfriend’s tragic bed-linen.

Tamas Wells isn’t cool. He isn’t making hairy-chested primal rawk or angular Gang of Four-influenced post-punk. He isn’t even spruiking the kind of epic, orchestral folk music the equally polite Sufjan Stevens is in the business of making. It’s much more in the vein of what Belle and Sebastian were doing in their mid-90s cutesy phase, rather than the almost glam-rock phase they seem to have entered into with The Life Pursuit.

Wells’ music is destined to be dismissed and degraded, but mostly just ignored. Yet if you give it a chance, you might just find that it warms you up a little on cold nights and brings a hint of a smile to corners of your mouth.

As I wrote in my never-printed live review back in 2002—“Tamas Wells isn’t doing anything revolutionary. But in their quiet way, they’re making the world a better place.”

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