Tasseomancy Are Shape-Shifting, Mystical Siblings

Photo By Daniel Dorsa

For Tasseomancy, the last seven or eight years have been a storied, musically transformative journey—weaving in and out of shifting planes of melody, genre, personnel, and influence. What began as a mishmash of bedroom lo-fi, freak folk and haunting, quasi-pop songs crafted by sisters Sari and Romy Lightman while they resided in Halifax has since blossomed into a beguiling, genre-bending four-piece band that has toured the world. A swirling mix of folk, dance, country and everything in between, Tasseomancy meticulously crafts immersive, cascading songs that slowly unfold, revealing their well-kept secrets, and wistfully carrying you off into the ether. “When we were first starting out, we were just learning how to play our instruments, so there’s been a huge learning curve in terms of musicality, what sounds we’re drawn to,” says Sari.

As people grow, learn and evolve, so too should the art that they’re drawn to, and the art that they make. Drawing an influence and inspiration from their experiences on the road is something that the sisters have been doing almost non-stop since their debut EP, back when they were then a duo called Ghost Bees in 2008. “The places we’ve traveled to have exposed us to music we would’ve been otherwise out to lunch about. This record is an introduction to Tasseomancy as band instead of a duo. We were interested in making lighter, percussive music you can move to, embracing the pop,” says Sari. The current iteration of the band came after the addition of drummer and percussionist Evan Cartwright and keyboardist Johnny Spence. Surprisingly, the band took a long while to come together as a cohesive unit, even though the four have been playing together on and off for the past four years in various side projects and intertwining tours. “We’ve been playing with Evan and Johnny for the past four years. Both Romy and I were occupied touring and working with Austra, and Johnny was touring with Tegan and Sara," Sari explains. "So it’s been a slow, gradual evolution, honing a musical language as a band that keeps changing. They’re both musical wizards with incredible skill and intuition, and they’re very integral to the sound of Tasseomancy.”

Their newest album, Palm Wine Revisited feels like the portrait of a cohesive band, whereas previous efforts like the Simon Trottier and Taylor Kirk (Timber, Timbre) produced Ulalume seemed to be more collaborative, drawing out the immense and beautiful musical synergy of the sisters. Sari is quick to note, however, that the musical synergy in question has a lot less to do with the genes the two share, and more to do with the fact that they spend a copious amount of time together on a day to day basis. According to Sari, “I think it’s because we spend a lot of time talking about music and what we’re drawn to. Since we don’t have a theoretical background, we tend to speak it out in terms of what we want the music to feel like. Sibling acts have always had a kinetic tightness to them, but I think that connection can form between anyone who plays music together for a long period of time, putting energy into listening and understanding what the other person is trying to communicate.”

That’s not to say that they’re necessarily bound together in musical taste, or that they’re always on the same page. Their wildly differing tastes in music over the course of the last few years have resulted in songs that flit from genre to genre almost effortlessly, gliding through a gradient of pop, folk, ambient and drone. “Currently, we’re working on demos for a new record, and Romy has been writing all these dance songs where I’ve been listening to country music for the first time. I’m learning how to yodel like Patsy Cline, and Romy is playing synth all day,” says Sari. Akin to the ancient act of fortune-telling with tea leaves that the band’s name invokes, Palm Wine Revisited—and the band’s music on a whole—has a certain esoteric mysticism to it. It’s a sense that there’s something else contained within it, something you can’t quite put your finger on. Between the blissed-out synth tones, pillow-soft, reverberating steel drums and bewitching, soaring harmonies, the landscape the album rests in is an entirely different world than our own. In an attempt to glean some insight into the album, we sat down with Sari to discuss what went into making it, and what it means in the larger context of music in Canada right now.

You have the album out on tapes right now, but it’s coming out on vinyl later - what’s the reason for the low-key pre-release?
Sari: We wanted to put this album out on vinyl with Healing Power Records, because they’ve been creating a really eclectic, artist friendly label, collaborative scene in Toronto. With RIP-V closing down their vinyl plant, we’ve been waiting on the records for almost eight months now, which is kind of unheard of. It stinks because the closure wasn’t because of financial floundering - vinyl sales have doubled over the past year. I guess it was more lucrative for them to sell to the States, so I’m sure many bands like us were just kind of stuck waiting.

Touching on that, in your experience in the last couple of years, has it become easier or harder to be a musical artist in Canada?
I think the overall climate of being a contemporary band in Canada has changed. National grant funding for musicians like FACTOR have become a lot more industry focused, so it’s supporting bands who already have more established careers, which seems to suppress the integrity/creativity of bands who need financial support. Even though there’s still a lot of exciting music happening across the country, bands with a more polished, cookie cutter approach rise to the top in terms of funding and exposure. There’s a lot of businesspeople making music: They’ve got their manager and online persona before they’ve even played their first show.

It’s really not how we approach music at all. We couldn’t even play the game even if we tried, so we just focus on growing creatively, trying to make music we feel good about. It’s exciting to see artists like Tanya Tagaq getting the recognition she deserves. We were at the Polaris this year and her performance was one of the most incredible musical experiences I’ve ever seen.

You two got your start after moving to Halifax, but have since left—do you think that Halifax is a viable and liveable city for making music and creating art in right now?
Definitely. Rent is still affordable, so you can really focus on what you’re doing instead of working a million shitty jobs. You don’t need to put on a suit, or conform to industry standards or play into the idea of “making it” that happens a lot in bigger cities, so you can be yourself all the time, keep a nice garden, keep your mind open. Also, the community is very supportive too.

In regards to the eclectic sound of this album, I’ve never really hear a steel drum used in this kind of context before - how did you start incorporating that into the songs?
Romy acquired one over four years ago and I just really liked the tone of the steel pan and it’s ability to be simultaneously percussive and musical. There were a few shows around that time where Romy used to play steel pan while I played mandolin, accompanied to a record player, so things have really changed since Evan came along.

The songs on Palm Wine Revisited we recorded over the past few years in between touring schedules and other projects, so I think of this album as less of a cohesive entity and more of a portrait of what we’ve been up to. A lot of the songs were arranged on the fly by the four of us in the studio, so the songs have a spontaneity to them.

Nick Laugher’s recent tea reading revealed that you can follow him on Twitter @largiantribune