the psychedelic, hypno-groove band’s name refers to a domesticated impala; the band sees themselves as “a steady flowing psychedelic groove rock band that emphasizes dream-like melody.”

according to the band, “tame impala is the movement in orion's nebula and the slime from a snail journeying across a footpath.  to humans however, tame impala is more of a 'music ensemble', but its various other forms should not be disregarded.”

the band is “equally informed by the beatles as it is beat poetry, by turkish prog as it is by turkish delight, and by english folk as much as homeless folk” and finds influence in cream; john lennon; the mamas & the papas; crosby, stills, nash and young; and contemporaries gnarls barkley, massive attack; portishead; nas, and wu-tang clan.

the band, like many others owe much of their success to myspace; as their “friend list” increased the label bidding war began.

in september 2008, upon the release of their self-titled debut ep, the band went to number one on the australian independent record labels chart.  during that time, they toured in support of you am i, the black keys, yeasayer and mgmt.

tame impala's debut album, innerspeaker, released may 21, 2010.  “innerspeaker is tame impala's chance to paint a far more extensive picture, and sure enough it redrafts the entire tame impala world as we knew it into an explosive, cosmic wonderland of ecstatic harmony and perfectly accessible journeys into inner space,” said kevin.

click here for the video to the single “solitude is bliss”.  click here for a couple videos and songs.  click here for a pretty sweet website for innerspeaker.  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check here to see if tame impala have any gigs scheduled near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.

tame impala are wild.

if you agree, please spread the word (about the band and this site).

jason

don't worry if you missed the freelance whales profile from last week: here it is.

modular recordings


teapot