Tina - Positive Mental Health Music (LP) - Transparent Pink Vinyl

South London has a way of turning anxiety into bright, off‑kilter pop, and Tiña’s Positive Mental Health Music landed right in the middle of that conversation in November 2020. Released on Speedy Wunderground and produced by the label’s founder Dan Carey at his Streatham studio, it arrived with a neat bit of history too. It was the first full‑length album put out by Speedy Wunderground after years of cult 7-inches and sessions, a milestone for a label that helped shape the Windmill Brixton scene. That alone raised the stakes, but Tiña met the moment with a record that feels personal, cracked, and quietly triumphant.

If you caught them live around that time, you’ll remember the pink cowboy hat and a sincerity that could disarm a noisy room. The album bottles that feeling. Guitars jangle and sway, keys bubble under the surface, and the rhythm section keeps everything grounded. It sits somewhere between psychedelic pop and scrappy indie, but it is the writing that sticks. These songs talk plainly about therapy, worry, and the strange relief that follows a breakdown. Nothing feels sloganeering. It is closer to a diary where the pages have been shuffled, and the music does the stitching.

Carey’s touch is obvious, and welcome. He favours immediacy, so the band sounds close, like you can reach out and tap the ride cymbal. You hear room tone, air, and small scuffs that add character rather than clutter. Speedy Wunderground sessions are known for capturing bands live and encouraging instinct over polish, and Positive Mental Health Music benefits from that approach. The arrangements breathe. Choruses don’t explode, they unfurl, which suits the subject matter. You can almost see the red lights in the studio and a band leaning into the take that felt right.

The singles do a lot of the work introducing Tiña’s world. I Feel Fine is the obvious entry point, a track that walks its title like a tightrope. It is sweet without being cloying, a shaky reassurance set to chiming guitar lines. Dip leans into a gentler sway, a comedown song about the bits of your brain that won’t settle, the kind you put on when the party is a memory and you need to breathe. Rosalina is a heart‑tugger, less in your face, more a late night phone call. People widens the frame. It has a communal tug, a reminder that even the strangest feelings have an audience. None of these are built for big rooms, yet they burrow in. They feel like conversations, not speeches.

Part of the appeal is how Tiña thread lightness through heavy topics. A stray synth sparkle, a little guitar lick that sounds like sunlight on tiles, a vocal delivered with a half smile. You can picture the band hammering these out at the Windmill and finding that the softer they play, the louder the songs feel. There is courage in that. In a year that scrambled everyone’s sense of balance, the album found listeners who didn’t need catharsis by volume, they needed company. That might be why it still lands.

As a piece of the Speedy Wunderground story, it is a telling chapter. The label had already nurtured South London’s restless streak, but committing to a debut album like this said a lot about taste and trust. Carey’s production stitches the record together so it feels short and complete, a front‑to‑back listen rather than a set of singles. That makes the Positive Mental Health Music vinyl an easy recommendation. On wax the warmth of the room jumps out, and the quieter songs in particular gain a little glow. If you’re crate digging in a Melbourne record store, or hunting through vinyl records Australia wide, keep an eye out. Speedy Wunderground pressings tend to disappear.

If you’re new to Tiña, start with the album, not just the singles. Let it play while you make dinner, then again on headphones. The melodies reveal a few new turns with each listen, and the words take on different shades depending on your day. It is the kind of record that sneaks into your routine. And if you collect Tiña vinyl or you want to buy Tiña records online, this sits nicely next to other Tiña albums on vinyl and the broader Speedy catalogue. The cover looks sharp in a stack, the music earns its space, and the whole thing still feels like a quiet win for a band brave enough to say what they mean and a label brave enough to press it into the groove.