Pitchfork: Tarentel To Release LP, EP's, Possible DVD

Tarentel To Release LP, EP's, Possible DVD
I liked that guitar progression a lot, but instead of going to the G and then the A, how about you stick to F for the whole 12 minutes and play it on that broken harmonium instead, but slower and with fewer notes underwater?

Like the whirling Italian folk dance their name curtails, Tarentel's catalog is a veritable revolving door of aesthetics, bandying back and forth between minimal classicalism and mopey folk, decadently lazy drone and tense psychedelia-- a baggage claim of seriousness, if you will. And as Jefre Cantu-Ledesma recently told the 'Fork, the first official follow-up to 2001's The Order Of Things looks to boast the same rotary quality. Or, as he put it, "it's all over the place."

After nearly three months of hiding away with Jeff Byrd (Neurosis, Pinback, etc.) at Mr. Toads in San Francisco, the band emerged with a mountain of new material and an even larger mountain of coke. "I think when all was said and done we ended up with about 6 hours-plus of stuff, which obviously means we did a lot of cocaine," said Cantu-Ledesma. Mmmm, nothin' like some blow at 3:30 in the morning to get those creative juices flowin', huh? If any results were yielded, though, they must have manifest themselves in the mushrooming amount of instruments Tarentel was willing to utilize on the album. Indeed, implementing far more this go around than on any of their previous efforts, the band enlisted the help of Steve Dye on bass clarinet and several homemade reed instruments, and Tony Cross on violin, waterphone and harmonium. What's more, Cantu-Ledesma promises an increased role for the trusty computer, and the continued use of field recordings and old 78 record players.

While the album is still without a name or tracklist, Tarentel's Danny Grody assures the 'Fork that the release should wander onto record store shelves sometime this October. However, good ol' Jefre was kind enough to mention a few of the more exciting titles, which include: Conscious Stream Of Unconsciousness, Tarentel is the Crazy Dance That You Do When Overcome by the Holy Spirit, and The Dick In Your Pants. Smells like some more cocaine-creativity to me.

In other Tarentel news, parts of the same sessions will supply the band with at least one equally-untitled EP, which should see release in September or October. "Also, we're still in the process of mixing an EP for Acuarela, which will hopefully be out in the Spring or Summer," said Cantu-Ledesma. Industrious lads, but it doesn't stop there! No.

Finally, it would appear as though a DVD could be in the works for the band, whose good friend and film-maker Paul Clipson documented a chunk of the most recent recording sessions, and has been filming at several of the band's latest shows. Now this is some output! Ryan Adams, eat your mirror-image heart out.