Tera Melos - 2011 Coach Road Session

Band : Tera Melos

Album : Coach Road Session

Release Year : 2011

Genre : Experimental | Mathrock

Tracklist : 

01. Frozen Zoo
02. Aped
03. Coach Road Sessions (Video File)

Tera Melos is a band from Sacramento, California, that incorporates many styles of rock, jazz, ambient electronics and unconventional song structure all in one, to create their original genre. They are currently a four-piece (formerly four, then three, now four again), consisting of a guitarist/vocalist, bassist, drummer and a new guitar/keyboardist/vocalist added to the line-up. Although they have never released the meaning behind their name, tera melos is Latin for one thousand melodies and is most likely the origin of their name.

Tera Melos stopped by to record a session with BeatCast during their busy summer touring schedule, which has seen them play across Europe and the US, including shows with Sargent House labels mates Le Bucherettes and Adebisi Shank. They very kindly ventured into the wilds of the english countryside with BeatCast to BeatCast's friends at Coach Road Studios where BeatCast recorded a few songs. See here ‘Frozen Zoo’ and ‘Aped’ from the current album ‘Patagonian Rats’.

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Tera Melos - 2011 Live at Daytrotter Studio

Band : Tera Melos

Album : Live at Daytrotter Studio

Release Year : 2011

Genre : Experimental | Mathrock

Tracklist : 

1. Welcome to Daytrotter
2. So Occult/Kelley
3. Frozen Zoo
4. Melody Nine

They're going to have enough to worry about when we die to get the music at our funeral right. It's a tough job. There's so much that we left unsaid. It's not just us, it's you and that guy and her too. We'll all feel as if we were abbreviated before we were able to get it all spit out. There are going to be all those phone calls to break the bad news to all of the people who knew us. There are going to be flower arrangements to take care of and tears to cry. Someone's gotta get the deviled eggs and baked beans cooked up for the luncheon to follow the short ceremony at the cemetery. There's the casket and the very serious consideration of what we may have wanted buried with us. No one's ever going to be able to get that right and there we'll be, covered in dirt, our lifeless and bored body, eternally sharing a box with some shirt or beer koozie that one of our family members thought was our lucky shirt or lucky beer koozie. It's enough to make you want to rot faster. What we think we could handle would be a song or two from the Sacramento, California, band Tera Melos that seem as if they'd keep us company while we decomposed. The mash-up of two short tracks from the group's latest full-length, "Patagonian Rats," - "So Occult" and "Kelley" - sound married to one another here, helplessly devoted to the other in a swooping love affair that might be passing for something no longer of this world. Nick Reinhart, Nathan Latona and John Clardy give us the line, "We're jumping out of our skin tonight/Something took my brain for a ride," and it's either a stab at the psychedelic or it's a gentle way of suggesting that something tragic befell the main character. They sing, "I'm going to have to call you later," but nothing in the way that they sing the lines, suggests that they'll be in any hurry to do so and perhaps they'll never have the chance. It sounds like a death welcomed and when they sing, "Singers writing songs always hate when they're right," we hear in the line what we want to hear, sitting here thinking about our demise. We think we hear that singers and writers hate to hear that they're right when they're right about it being the end, about there being nothing else out there. It's when the end comes that we've really got a lot to think about. -daytrotter

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Tera Melos - 2011 Patagonian Rats [Deluxe]

Band : Tera Melos

Album : Patagonian Rats [Deluxe]

Release Year : 2011

Genre : Experimental / Mathrock

Tracklist : 

1. So Occult
2. Kelly
3. The Skin Surf
4. Aped
5. Trident Tail
6. Frozen Zoo
7. In Citrus Heights
8. Skywatch
9. Party With Gina
10. Another Surf
11. Westham United
12. A New Uniform / Patagonia
13. Purple and Stripes
14. Kelley
15. Manar The Magic
16. Melt Bamanarnana (Melt Banana Remix)
17. Manar The Magic (Pat Hills' Rat Trap Dub)
18. Manar Was A Rat
19. Frozen Zoo (Thawed Out Mix)
20. Frozen Zoo (Raleigh Moncrief Remix)

 

Patagonian Rats is delightfully noisy and nothing about the instrumental work comes off as half-assed. The band's trademark shaky guitar riffs jangle through endless melodies, constantly switching up rhythm and tone. It's not like every track sounds like the grind of "Another Surf" or the mass reverberations of "Kelly"; the melodies are quite charming. However, each song holds common ground in that the instruments all feverishly avoid finding their niche throughout the record. Which is all fine, to be honest. The effects-laden guitars generate youthful energy, the unpredictability being idiosyncratic in all the right ways. But there's one tiny little inclusion present on this record that nulls all of the positive qualities previously mentioned: the vocals.

While Patagonian Rats is undeniably more frantic than their previous releases, the actual songs have a serious pop edge and the vocals seal this aspect, lazily dropping hook after another. One may assume they have taken the "Fang Island route" as far as their new vocal components go, but there is a heavy distinction seeing as Fang Island's self-titled brought in group vocals along with tightened songcraft, while the inclusion of indie pop singing on Tera Melos' new LP only highlights the incoherence of the record. It's the juxtaposition of endless mathy indulgence and earnest pop vocals that bring down this record and ruins its truly unique qualities. This isn't quite so noticeable as the first serious track "The Skin Surf" opens up, the vocals sounding reminiscent of surf-rock and flowing right along with the track. But as the album continues on and branches out, one can't help but feel that the vocalist is desperately trying to keep melodic while adapting with the crazy pace of the instruments and it just doesn't work. When emphasis is placed on the vocal hook, the instruments are plagued by their directionless nature. And in the context of the music the vocals sound meaningless, dropping melody after melody but never making their presence definable or interesting.

At the end, there's no sense to make of this record. The crooning melodies sound lifeless when matched up with the intense instrumentals. The guitars, on the other hand, sound amateurish and grating whenever a new motif is introduced. Due to the album's ever-changing nature, the most enjoyable moments come in small fragments. However, in context of the record, it doesn't make up for the sloppiness. It's sad because one can hear the lack of focus dedicated to individual aspects of the album, the record's different qualities being lazily mixed together. Patagonian Rats could have been a fun-ass math-pop record if there wasn't a different vocal hook for every change in the music. They could've created a great noise rock record if they didn't compromise meandering silliness with earnest harmonies. When an individual track is picked out, the album's incoherent sound isn't immediately present. Nevertheless, when the album is played as a whole, there is absolutely no flow and it ends up being a collection of tunes that wander around overzealously and end up losing their sense of purpose. Patagonian Rats is a disjointed piece of work, occasionally finding a sweet spot, but rarely making a statement.

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Tera Melos - 2009 Idioms Vol. 1

Band : Tera Melos

Album : Idioms Vol. 1

Release Year : 2009

Genre : Experimental / Mathrock

Tracklist : 

1. Meant For You (The Beach Boys cover)
2. Koka Kola (The Clash)
3. Tame (The Pixies cover)
4. Blast Off (Weezer cover)
5. Hey Sandy (Polaris cover)

 

In a recent myspace bulletin post, lead guitarist Nick Reinhart mentioned how happy he was that he didn't have to tap one single note on this whole ep. "I felt like such a hack everytime I started to play 40 Rods..."
We could've had a full length in a recent time from Tera Melos. At least until drummer Vince Rogers left the band. But with Vince leaving the band, the whole idea of a new full length for us to steal came to a screeching halt. After picking up new drummer John Clardy, Tera Melos put the idea of a new full length on hold, and rather decided to pick up their instruments and play the songs that most inspired them. They describe these songs as: "These are five of the raddest songs ever written. Since we will probably never write anything as cool as these, we figured we'd recreate them. Also, since they will likely never be performed by the original artist again, and quite possibly by anyone, we will honor them by playing them live." Taking a few months to relearn their most influential songs, the next stream of releases coming out look to be Cover EPs such as this one, Idioms Vol. 1.
The music itself is a huge change of pace for Tera Melos as a whole. Gone is the crazy spastic, jazz like drumming found on their previous albums. Gone is the crazy tapping frenzy that guitarist Nick Reinhart and bassist Nathan Latona flung at your ears at a million miles per hour. We are greeted with toned down technicality, a flurry of effects, and most surprisingly, vocals. Tera Melos never really used vocals. First a few undecipherable lines on their debut LP, and then an added conclusion of vocals found on their split EP with "By The End of Tonight." Here the vocals are not used as another layer, but more as the fronting force. Nick's vocals are put through a lot of effects and such throughout the EP, and give the EP a more chilled-out feel. The guitar and bass are toned down from the aggressive and spastic nature found on their previous recordings. No more crazy time-signature shifts, jazz-style drumming. The one thing that still remains from previous recordings is the high use of sampling. Halfway through most of the songs everything will cut out and sample will cut over carrying the song over to it's next part. The guitars are much more simple and Nick relies on pulling his strings more than any other technique he has used. The bass is more groovy then pounding and the drums rely more on simplicity and substitute a few fills in here and there.
The covers themselves are very well done and more importantly, they're loads of fun. I can't imagine someone staying depressed through the EPs 7 minute 56 second play time. The songs are happy, bouncy and upbeat. It's quite evident throughout the whole playtime that everyone in the band was having a lot of fun recording the songs that they know, love and grew up with. The songs flow through in a fantastic way that allow the EP to flow as smooth as a slip n' slide. For one, I'm happy for this new transition in Tera Melos' writing process. It seems that they have completely dropped what had made them original in the first place, to progress into a different realm of song writing and techniques. If they actually do decide to change their sound completely, only time will be able to tell us that. 

 

 

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