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Two Loons for Tea

 
Two Loons for Tea

trip hop, downtempo, indie pop, pop, electro-acoustic, electronic, sensual

1 songs
4.0K plays
Properly Chilled reviews "Nine Lucid Dreams" "Sexy, just too sexy to even mention, almost erotic, really! These are the words that immediately come to mind when addressing Two Loons for Tea's beautiful work. 'Nine Lucid Dreams' is this Seattle-based duo's third album and it's like their 'Simple Things', the big breakthrough for Zero 7. It starts in style with an incredibly gorgeous track, 'Sunset Room', sure to insufflate fresh air into any toxic brain. "It's impossible not to fall in love with Sarah Scott's voice and Jonathan Kochmer's gently layered music patterns. The diehard downtempo fan will probably be surprised by these often acoustic, somehow voice-centered numbers but, as 'Consuela' comes in, the agnostic jaw will probably drop like autumn leaves in Canada. This rumba-inspired track feels so beautifully out-of-place it will tuck you in as if it were your grandmother getting you ready for a nights sleep. "'Monkey', the second and thus decisive track, brings in a bagful of styles from the jazzy ambience to the trip-hopped folk rock. It should work pretty well as electronic music for the hearing impaired â“ the vibe is so intense and rich the deaf would at least sense it in the back of their mind. But, above all, Two Loons for Tea will end up setting the mood for beautiful, sunny afternoons spent in the park with the headphones on."
Band/artist history
With most bands these days, it seems to be whatâs outside that counts. What makes the imaginative duo of Sarah Scott and Jonathan Kochmer -- known as Two Loons for Tea -- stand out from the crowd starts inside. Literally in the case of Sarah. Sheâs got an extra rib â“ 13 of them on one side rather than the conventional dozen. Maybe thereâs a connection between that and the hauntingly beautiful voice, hypnotic melodies and colorfully offbeat lyrics she brings to the music of Two Loons for Tea. Jonathan, as far as he knows, has the standard number on both sides. But he mirrors his partnerâs asymmetry with his visionary musical constructions. Two Loons for Tea returns five years after its second album -- the critically acclaimed, challenging yet seductive Looking for Landmarks -- and having forged intense bonds with an ever-growing legion of loyal fans in North America and Europe, have delivered Nine Lucid Dreams. Independent in spirit and in business (with their growing Sarathan Records label), the album at once delivers on the promise of its predecessors and opens up new artistic vistas and possibilities for the Seattle-based duo. Their first two albums and expressive concerts have earned comparisons to Massive Attack, Zero 7, Cocteau Twins, Portishead, Psapp, and Rickie Lee Jones, among many others. And Sarah and Jonathan cite a vast range of influences from Aphex Twin to Xenakis, most of the way through the alphabet. All that now, though, seems at best mere starting points. Recorded in part at Willie Nelsonâs Pedernales Studio in Texas with such friends as drummer Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam, Tori Amos), keyboard master Patrick Warren (Michael Penn, Fiona Apple) and strings wizard Eyvind Kang (John Zorn, Blonde Redhead) helping out, Nine Lucid Dreams brings the alchemy of Sarahâs hauntingly beautiful vocals and colorfully imaginative lyrics combined with Jonathanâs vivid musical vision to full fruition. The title is a perfect fit for the songs that are both crystal clear portrayals and vivid visions worthy of Jung. The atmospheres can shift from being as lush as the Seattle landscapes to as arid and spare as the west-Texas desert, the images range from intimate confessions to colorful character sketches. Very much not about trends and hairdos. But what is it about? The tingle. âœOur involvement with music is about making a connection with something larger than ourselves,â쳌 Jonathan says. âœItâs that whole-body tingling feeling we get when weâre recording or performing and alerts us that weâre on the right path.â쳌 But itâs not just for them. Itâs for the audience. âœTo hear back reports from others that theyâve experienced the same tingling at home or at shows is wonderful. Itâs about creating a community of feeling.â쳌 Theyâve certainly created an intriguing community in the character-filled (in both senses of character) array of songs on Nine Lucid Dreams â“ from the circus-denizens of âœThe Strongest Man in the Worldâ쳌 to the defiant prostitute in âœMarietta,â쳌 from the delicate yearning of âœTragically Hipâ쳌 to the Beat surrealist narration of âœConsuelaâ쳌 (voiced by Jonathan in his frontman debut) and from the fogged impressionistic account of a hair-stylist friendâs murder in âœEyebrows Are Natureâs Makeupâ쳌 to the space-age jazzbo-hoedown âœDixie It Up!â쳌 Jonathan and Sarah are an unlikely community themselves. His background is academia and technology, with experience in biostatistics, human genetics, climate change studies, evolutionary biology, Internet development and such, combined with an incurable entrepreneurial bug, is manifested most recently in the expanding operations of Sarathan Records, with a roster that includes releases by Airpushers (two members of the Black Eyed Peasâ band), Abra Moore, The Purrs and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Jonathanâs past shows a knack for initiating and developing successful enterprises since grad school, with the growing Sarathan following suit. Sarah, in contrast, was raised by a free-spirited single mom, living in such locales as San Franciscoâs Haight-Asbury, next to a nudist colony in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Spokane Washington, with Sarah carrying the bohemian lifestyle into adulthood. When they met in the â90s, he was playing the Seattle open-mic circuit and outdoor festivals, and she was singing in an R&B revue. They clicked immediately, hooked up with some ex-members of The New Bohemians, first as Loon, but as the line-up contracted to the duo, the name expanded to Two Loons for Tea. Nine Lucid Dreams was not necessarily a quicker record than Looking For Landmarks, but the process and results were more fluid than in the past. After an enforced three-year hiatus (âœI almost amputated my left index finger in a bizarre accident involving a butter knife and a buffalo burger,â쳌 Jonathan reports), the two sought a new environment for recording, setting up shop at Willie Nelsonâs digs in the hills of Texas rather than in rainy Seattle. âœBecause of our improvisational recording process, the environment made our music a little sunnier this time, with a touch of the Southwest desert,â쳌 Jonathan says. And to keep the process fresh, Sarah tried some new techniques. âœI tried on this album to get out of my own head, which I really enjoyed,â쳌 she says. âœIn the past, the subject matter has been personal either from me or close friends. In Nine Lucid Dreams, I also borrowed from movies. âStrongest Man in the World,â was inspired by Bye Bye Brazil, which is about an unlikely crew of characters that who all end up in a traveling Brazilian circus.â쳌 Revisiting methods used on previous records, she cut up words and phrases and allowed chance into the creative process by drawing them out of a bag or scrambling them on the floor. âœPretty much all of the songs on Nine Lucid Dreams were done that way, except for âStrongest Man in the Worldâ and âStand on Your Head,â which is also from a film, about the writer Janet Frame from New Zealand, who passed away just after I wrote the song. She had a difficult life growing up and didnât fit in to her surroundings. It was inspiring to me because I think I always felt a little odd growing up, slightly left of center, like she did, but she found a way to channel her loneliness and discontent into her art.â쳌 Through it all, Jonathan has worked to blend a wide spectrum of musical aesthetics into a singular whole â“ a process he relates to his PhD research at Yale in the field of speciation. âœTo a large degree, what makes Two Loons for Tea's music unique is that it is a hybrid of many distinct musical species . . . rock, pop, jazz, classical, funk, folk, and various ethnic musics,â쳌 he says. âœAnd yet, despite the many parental sources, it has a distinct identity of its own.â쳌 Itâs Jonathan and Sarah who sound like proud parents as they discuss their hopes for the album. âœWe want to do this one right,â쳌 Jonathan says. âœThis time, Iâm staying away from butter knives and buffalo burgers. I donât want to miss that thrill when people tell us a song has a thematic tie to their livesâ쳌 âœOr even,â쳌 Sarah notes, âœwhen they say, âWe made a baby to one of your songs! Or âyour music made me get lucky.â We hear this one a lot! And they share far too many details with us. TMI! Strange to think weâre in the bedroom with them.â쳌 As they said: the tingle.
Have you performed in front of an audience?
The band is based in Seattle, so it is not uncommon to see them playing at The Triple Door in the downtown area.
Your musical influences
Anja Garbarek, Aphex Twin, Balinese, Burmese & Central Asian music, Bela Bartok, Billie Holiday, Chaka Khan, Bob Dylan, Bjork, Johannes Brahms, George Crumb, Debussy, Nick Drake, Brian Eno, Brian Ferry, Burt Jansch, Catherine Wheel, Cocteau Twins, Dixie Dregs, Ednaswap, Emmylou Harris, Fleetwood Mac, Franz Schubert, Genesis (pre-Phil Collins), Gentle Giant, Golden Palominos, Hatfield and the North, Jefferson Airplane, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, King Crimson, Leo Kottke, Motown, Neotropic, Peter Gabriel, Ravel, Rickie Lee Jones, Robert Fripp, Robert Palmer, Robert Schumann, Stevie Wonder, Stravinsky, Suzanne Vega, Talking Heads, tango neuvo, U2, Iannis Xenakis
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