Album Spotlight: Two Loons For Tea
Two Loons For Tea glide into heavenly harmony on their sophomore album Looking For Landmarks.
One stop on their extensive line of performing venues is Seattle, Washington -- home to the two harmonizing larks, Jonathan Kochmer and Sarah Scott, the Jack and Jill of musical ingenuity.
He, a seemingly one-man band -- learned in a great number of guitars, bass, keyboard and, perhaps most importantly, the electronic effects of production -- and she, a soulful set of wailing, whispering lungs.
Together the pair produces flourishing trip-hop tracks full of passionate lyrics and ambient electronica. With the help of a long list of instrumentally savvy friends (offering their services as saxophonists, Warr guitarists and a great number of other offbeat tools), the two took the pop world by storm with the release of this second record.
The title track,
Looking For Landmarks
, features a Middle
Eastern flair kept afloat by a hypnotic beat and Scott's penchant
for charmingly pleading listeners to fall under her seductive
spell.
Having traveled all around the country as a single child to a single mom -- making prolonged stops in some of the most free-spirited and intimate locales in the land (e.g., San Francisco, a nudist colony on the outskirts of Santa Cruz and the ever-vibrant Big Apple) -- Scott lived an avant-garde life from a young age on. And that bohemian history shines through in her songs: carefree lyrics tied to delicately pieced together compositions.
Hailing from a somewhat different American-style heritage, Kochmer's exquisite mixing skills might have been molded by his academic history in biology, climatology, human genetics, biostatistics and generally detail-oriented studies. (For more on Kochmer's own backstory, see our original introduction of the band).
The combination of her organic sensibility and his acute attention span results in records full of atmospheric melodies supported by cataclysmic electronic blips. Looking For Landmarks, specifically, is loaded with lavish flourishes, extensive layers and acoustic arias.
With vocals similar to Mazzy Star and EmilĂana Torrini and pop fusion like that of Massive Attack and The Submarines, added to the duo's tendency to draw influence from Motown, Asian and a wide variety of world genres, Two Loons For Tea are flying straight toward electroacoustic acclaim.
Additional Tracks:
Shape Of Strange
The Prisoner

