Healamonster
& Tarsier are a Brooklyn production duo (Burgess Tomlinson and
Rona Rapadas) who combine elements of ambient pop with experimental
electronics and acoustic psychedelia. They specialize in moody, textural,
sprawling, unconscious music pulled from cellos, acoustic guitars,
dolphin conversations, programmed beats, magic mountains and thunderstorms.
Harmonious and haunting he/she vocals ride alongside elastic, mostly
midtempo, beats, though at times instrumental tracks can peddle up
and over 140 bpm.
Their
current EP, The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car,
was co-produced with Mitch Osias, a New York film/tv soundtrack composer
whom they first met at Brooklyn venue, Southpaw, while opening for
The Sneaker Pimps. The six-track mini album continues along the similar
storyboard of their debut EP, 00:00:01 (One Second), and is
chock full of atmospheric arrangements, subterranean cellos, abstract
synths, broken guitar fuzz, programmed percussion, and crystalline
vocal harmonies.
Healamonster
& Tarsier have released tracks on independent record compilations
from San Francisco and New York, including the abstract trip hop-focused,
Live At The Complex Compilations I, II & III (Entartete
Kunst), All That Glitters Isn't Platinum Volume 1 (Amoeba/Hip
Hop Slam), Are Friends Electric (Seizmic Records NY), Bread
& Roses (Entartete Kunst), Amoeba Music Compilation Volume
IV (Amoeba/Hip Hop Slam). They recently completed a remix of "Inch
Inch" from Neotropic's White Rabbits LP (Mush). Tarsier
also collaborated with mc/production maestro, Alias, from Oakland's
anticon collective on a full album entitled, "Brookland/Oaklyn"
to be released May 2006 on anticon.
Healamonster's
first, solo, dub-experimental album, Underwater Hunter sold
over 500 copies from indie-retail giant, Amoeba Records. Gavin Magazine
said, "Fans of dark, sparse beats take note. This release features
eerie noises that click and gurgle
essential
for tripped out headphone adventures...laced
with spoken word and fat beats
adventurous
college stations will eat it up." Healamonster
began writing with Tarsier in New York where they recorded their debut
album, 00:00:01 (One Second), an aural snapshot of a dream,
combining erratic beats, with everything from alien homeless man samples
to frogs, cinematic synth lines, melancholic tubas, Manhattan subway
trains, eastern ceetaurs, and rapturous vocals. The Onion New York
wrote: "00:00:01 floats nicely between icy IDM and fractured
bedroom pop." CMJ described it as "a psychedelic
fantasy land created with delicate vocals, light piano, a harshly-fuzzed
out drum machine and mischievous electronic sounds."
H&T
are most inspired by argyle socks, wall-to-wall carpet, the smell
of new cassettes, sunshine on snow, post-it notes, patch bays, wet
hair and morning coffee, sharpies, mini-trampolines, spliffs and yellowtail
shiraz, egg sandwiches, pant pockets full of wishlists, chapstick
and cashed paychecks
Their
songs are timeless anesthetic for a straight-lined, fast and fickle
world.