Did you really think I was going to devote a week of An Album A Day posts to my favorite Travels In Constants discs without mentioning Tarentel? C’mon, they’ve been one of my favorite bands ever since the first time I laid ears on From Bone To Satellite. And since this EP was released the same year as that full length, you can imagine they’re quite similar sounding. Which is awesome. Tarentel’s obviously had two very different periods of development, the early “post-rock” years and the later experimental years, and I’m of the opinion that bot hare equally mindblowing. Between 1999-2002 they were recording beautiful and intricate instrumental rock music that was easily on par with groups like Mogwai and Godspeed and Labradford. Then once We Move Through Weather came out in 2004 (man, I still remember getting that disc for review in my school paper!) things changed. There was a harnessed noise/drone element that came to the forefront — which I had to grow to love, but it did not take long — and instead of “songs” their records felt like a series of pieces or movements. All delightful. Those Home Ruckus and Ghetto Beats releases were phenomenal. And holy fuck. To see Tarentel live, with Paul Clipson projecting his super-8 films? Unbelievable. I still smack my head every time I think about how Jefre and Jim invited me to their rehearsal space back in 2005 to hang out and watch them jam…and I passed on the invitation because I had to drive to Oregon. Stupid, stupid Evan…
Of the two tracks here, “The Waltz” and “Welcome,” the former was released on the compilation Ephemera (which also included “Looking For Things” / “Searching For Things” and both parts of the “Two Sides Of Myself” single. The CD isn’t too hard to find. Nor is the Travels In Constants one, I suppose. It took my years to find From Bone To Satellite on vinyl but then I unearthed three in the span of a year. By the way, if you don’t have that you should, because it includes a bonus track that wasn’t on the CD release. The Order Of Things continues to elude me, as have some of the early singles/EPs. I’d love to get my hands on the “When We Almost Killed Ourselves” lathe. That has to be the toughest title to find of theirs. And now I’m blathering on about geeky record collecting BS you don’t care about. Sorry. Just to let you know, I found my copy of Volume 3 in the 99-cent section at Princeton Record Exchange on February 16th, 2006. According to my records I also found a beat up copy of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane there that day. Where does the time go!?
Tarentel
Travels In Constants Volume Three
(Temporary Residence, LTD. – TIC3, 1999)
01. The Waltz
02. Welcome
