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TASSEOMANCY Share video for ‘Do Easy’ – New album Do Easy is out now on Bella Union

February 21, 2017

Yuula Benivolski

 

TASSEOMANCY

Share video for Do Easy’

New album Do Easy is out now on Bella Union

Following the recent release of their striking new album Do Easy on Bella Union, Toronto twin sister duo Tasseomancy (formerly of Austra) have shared the surreal video for track “Do Easy” on FADER. Showcasing the versatility and range of sisters Romy and Sari Lightman, “Do Easy” proves beguiling in its simplicity. Whimsical melodies and feather-light production easily charm, invoking the likes of Eleanor Friedberger/Fiery Furnaces in their endearing (and beautiful) quirkiness.

The band elaborates further about the video to FADER: “While writing Do Easy, we were interested in manifesting the domestic flow of William Burroughs’s, The Discipline of DE. In Zak Tatham’s video, this domestic order is overthrown; chaos reigns and we break on through to a more instinctual side. The Tower represented by the sterile condo is the dangling carrot of comfort and emotional disconnect.  It Ignores our bodies and gaslights the planet, quietly hisses “fuck off”. By smashing down the condo, we lay down the base of a cool new becoming. Go and take off your fancy shades, let the world’s words penetrate. Wear the stains of old mistakes. Make a room where you can roll around in the shit of forgiveness. Slowly regenerate. This is a feminine destruction; a happy death.”

Tasseomancy are currently amidst a European tour supporting Andy Shauf.

Genesis P-Orridge and Kathy Acker believed William Burroughs to be a vibrant beam of clarity. P-Orridge—a disciple of Burroughs—referred to “The Discipline of D.E. as a smooth hand of magic”. Romy of Tasseomancy stumbled upon the Discipline of D.E. (Do Easy), a short story outlining a don’t-bust-a-gut Buddhist philosophy and “like a gentle old cop making a soft arrest”, she was deeply touched and set out to find the easy way.

For the seasoned loners, stoners, and lackadaisically laid, Do Easy was written as a dead-beat anthem for a generation who was told that anything is possible after the possibility slows. Written in Toronto and Montreal, Do Easy was created as a lamp shade of hope and of soft survivalism. Serene, strange and magnetically sung, it honors its free thinking forbearers without being weighed down by them, creating immersive worlds of loving allusion.

Soft synths and crystalline harmonies merge hypnotically on “Dead Can Dance and Neil Young”, an invitation to “fade into folk song”. If folk song is this, it’s folk of great idiosyncrasy, where vocoded chorales provide atmospheric shading and alto-saxophones drift like cigarette smoke from a David Lynch dream-film. Between the new age synth of “Claudine & Annie”, the ambient swoon of “29 Palms”, Kate Bush-like prog-psych of “Missoula” and gently lapping title-track, Do Easy plays like pop from a parallel world.

Sisters Sari and Romy Lightman are former members of queer cold-wave band, Austra. Channelling their former forays in psychedelic folk into a kind of lushly accessible, warmly experimental dream-pop along with bandmates Johnny Spence and Evan Cartwright, they explore manipulated sounds, all with mood in mind. Assisted by friends Brodie West (alto-sax), Ryan Driver (flute) Simone Schmidt (voice of a young Neil Young) and Alex Cowan (Blue Hawaii) that exploration reaches full bloom on Do Easy, the sound of a band hitting their richly imagined, luxuriously executed stride. And, wealth of evocative references included, making it all sound easy.

Critical acclaim for Do Easy, out now on Bella Union:
“Oracular chants drowse on the edge of visionary rapture, while the title track seems to have found its own cosmic portal, sounds of sea, saxophone and steel drums creating a kind of tropical Avolon, a beach party hosted by Bat For Lashes and Let’s Eat Grandma… Irresistible.” MOJO – 4 Stars ****
“Exquisite…. On their sumptuous third album they situate their voices on a pillowy bed of experimental pop, freak folk and, best of all, the sax-enhanced exotica of the title track.” 
Uncut – 8/10 
“Wonderful and beguiling… After the year we’ve had, there’s time for an album that’s essentially a huge weird cuddle.” The Observer – 4 Stars ****
“Everything feels effortless on Tasseomancy’s third LP. This is a record of shades and shifting colours and a warm, graceful luxuriousness.” DIY – 4 Stars ****
“Easily the finest work of art to come out of Canada all year… Do Easy is a beautiful, big-sounding lesson in how to do witty, wise, lyrical dream-pop with the sort pf perfection that the genre deserves.” Monocle
“A languid and mystical form of baroque folk pop that alternates between seducing and confounding the listener. Missoula resembles Jonna Newsom performing at David Lynch’s Club Silencio… Hypnotic.” The Guardian 
“Extraordinary dreamlike music… If you’re a Kate Bush fan who wishes she’d bring out albums more often than once every couple of decades, you might find that Tasseomancy’s music will fill the log, aching gaps nicely.” Sunday Times
“Equally in thrall to early Kate Busy and Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamenti, this is dream-pop keen to tune into the otherworldly.” Q
“This is ethereal, dreamy, folk-cum-pop music: Kate Bush meets Joni Mitchell by way of the soundtrack from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.” Loud & Quiet – 7/10

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