{"id":3212,"date":"2011-11-23T18:40:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T00:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=3212"},"modified":"2011-11-23T18:40:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T00:40:20","slug":"tasseomancy-more-than-just-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2011\/11\/23\/tasseomancy-more-than-just-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasseomancy – More than Just Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jesse Blackman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Question: What do you get when you creatively combine the linguistic genius of one sister with the visual genius of another sister? Answer: a musical experience unlike any other.<\/p>\n

Tasseomancy refers to the Lightmans\u2019 great-great-grandmother who was a Russian Jew who lost her entire family in pogroms and fled to Canada; to help make ends meet during the Great Depression, she read tea leaves. Tasseomancy is a fancy name for that gift. Romy relates this to seven generations of mysticism in both First Nations and Jewish traditions\u2013these ideas mirror the belief that \u201cyour actions will affect seven generations ahead\u201d and \u201cwith every accomplishment you are looking back seven generations in order to\u201d understand \u201cthe sacrifices\u201d that were made. The sisters are \u201cfans of tea and also anything else that can kind of bring people together… It\u2019s less about stuff weighted by fate, and more so about maybe being honest with yourself in a certain situation\u2013what would you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tasseomancy, the band, was born out of the desire of sisters Romy and Sari Lightman\u2019s to expand the range of sound they could produce.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s like always threads,\u201d Romy explained. \u201cIt\u2019s a continuation of where we started with Ghost Bees,\u201d but the sisters realized that when they only \u201cplay an acoustic guitar and a mandolin there is only so much tonality \u2013 and you can only be so dynamic.\u00a0 That music was really contained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghost Bees came out of the sisters\u2019 time living out in Nova Scotia but when they moved home to the urban environment of Toronto the writing of folk songs felt \u201cinsincere.\u201d Romy couldn\u2019t \u201cwrite songs on [her] guitar by the ocean anymore, living in downtown Toronto.\u201d Before adding amplification, Ghost Bees could play anywhere, even on \u201clakes and haunted basements.\u201d Romy feels that they cannot play in as many places anymore \u201cbecause they aren\u2019t as mobile now. Before we had a real nomadic spirit of like picking up an instrument and playing acoustic with no microphones, and like the sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the brief time that I had to chat with Romy of Tasseomancy it became very clear that music was by no means the only focus of her life. When I asked about how the tour was going, Romy described it as feeling \u201cinfinite\u201d because although they only recently began opening for Austra, they have been touring as back-up vocalists for the group for weeks. In contrast to playing in Miami, the cold weather and snow that caused shows to be cancelled in the interior of British Columbia was \u201chumbling because you recognise your limitations as a human, you know? Even in the time when we\u2019re all on our laptops, and really connected.\u201d Speaking to the lifestyle of a traveling band, Romy feels \u201clike we\u2019re pioneers or settlers.\u201d She said that the members of Tasseo \u201care living the antithesis of life – that lifestyle right? We\u2019re so wide, and we\u2019re going all over the world. Once we get back to Canada, the next day we\u2019re going to Europe and after that Australia and Singapore. So we\u2019re living this really unnatural existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romy also spoke about her feelings towards the world we live in.\u00a0 She expressed scepticism about the future because of the \u201ccrumbling empire\u201d she experienced and \u201ceveryone can feel\u201d in the United States. However, \u201cExciting things are happening like the Occupy Wall Street. It really feels like there is a revolution.\u201d Furthermore, she spoke passionately about the wastefulness of the life of a traveling musician, from the litres of gas to the bottled water they\u2019re drinking. And although Romy doesn\u2019t think America is \u201cpost-apocalyptic, yet,\u201d she says she is a bit fearful.<\/p>\n

Throughout their American travels Romy has used \u201ca very superficial form of documentation. Because we\u2019re on tour and moving around so much, I\u2019ve been taking a disposable camera, you know, trying not to be too vain with it. And after looking at least at this leg in the States, everything I had tended to look very ugly, I had all these harsh images.\u201d As an art school drop-out who is attracted to beauty, Romy senses a profound power in her images, but also feels that they cannot be called photo journalism because she doesn\u2019t think she is \u201cnecessarily capturing the truth.\u201d Growing up in the\u201980s with a lot of plastic has played a part in helping Romy see the beauty in \u201cthe grotesqueness of all the garbage.\u201d Beyond this idea; \u201cThe music that is coming out right now is a reflection of that. A lot of things out there are gross and abrasive like electronic music. But as I listen more I understand that there is a reason that maybe all of the music is kind of dethatched and a bit harsh.\u00a0 I think in a way it vocalizes the existential crisis that maybe we\u2019re all enduring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s \u201cTasseo shows\u201d have a strong electronic feel with the addition of percussion and synth, and furthermore Romy says that these shows \u201care things that I think that we can actually \u2013 we\u2019re really interested in creating full sensory environments. We\u2019re really into site-specific installation but we kind of like to make them ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is \u201cthe next stage as opposed to finding cool places to play in\u201d continues Romy. These \u201crealms\u201d include spaces with visuals made by artists and various smells created from teas, all this in order to create \u201csurreal psychedelic experiences.\u201d The passion in her voice when Romy describe these shows is genuine.<\/p>\n

Clearly there are many profound ideas to grapple with here, and certainly at their upcoming show: Tasseomancy is playing at WECC on November 24 with Austra and Young Galaxy. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jesse Blackman Question: What do you get when you creatively combine the linguistic genius of one sister with the visual genius of another sister? Answer: a musical experience unlike any other. Tasseomancy refers to the Lightmans\u2019 great-great-grandmother who was a Russian Jew who lost her entire family in pogroms and fled to Canada; to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75,939],"class_list":["post-3212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-austra","tag-tasseomancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}