An Adulty Adipisci is a eight song collection of tales of adult experience
such as having children, feeling love, and enjoying a good drunk drive home.
This is the seventh TASM Lab album, and like its predecessors, it is completely
different than the rest.
The spotlight on Jeff Till's new compositions are the harmonized vocals of
Kalamazoo legend Chris Bryers (Twitch, Sleet, Owlsa, Selling
Heaven, TASM's "Thing and Nothing", and now "Hazel and the Black
Rabbit") and now Bostonite and beautiful pipette Michelle Graf (Blue Dahlia, "Thing
and Nothing", "The Essential Cubicle Nosepicker", Tether).
The vocals sing gorgeous, memorable melodies in sometimes energetic sometime
sullen tones. Harmonies and melodies are layered and rich, but sometimes
lonely and stark.
The singing is supported by a live band of acoustic guitars, gooey del
palmer-y bass, acoustic drums, live percussion, piano, and an assortment
of strings,
bells, choruses and even birds and atmospheric noises. The sounds with
harmonies are often layered into thick walls of sonic dream, like the
first track off
of the Cure's "disintegration", a prettier part of MBV's Loveless,
sometimes even feeling like an orchestra.
The songs could be compared to The Flaming Lips "The Soft Bulletin",
Tori Amos albums, The New Pornographers, Sun Kil Moon, Burt Bacharach, Elvis
Costello, Fiona Apple, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine,
The Church, Prince, David Gray, Peter Yourn, Coldplay, Adam Ant. Um. Elliot
Smith, Billy Bragg, The Damned's "Phantasmagoria". Maybe a bit of
sixties jangle in there, um, Webber and Lloyd, Henry Mancini...
Late stage Beatles or beach boys, as far as instrumentation, might
not be far off.
It's not totally unlike TASM Lab's "Essential Cubicle Nosepicker",
but there's a whole band this time.
You could also say it could fit into a Wes Anderson or Sophia Coppola
or other art-intellectual-quirky filmmaker soundtrack. This might
be the best
description,
because while the music is completely non-experimental and totally
pop-accessible, it avoids any established genre per se, much like
all of the strumming
and singing you hear in the inventive songs during movies like Rushmore
or Lost
in Translation.
