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Ships With Lights from Healamonster & Tarsier on Vimeo.
Healamonster & Tarsier (H&T) are an electronic production duo whose music is characterized by soft vocals, mid-tempo elastic breakbeats, and a variety of traditional instruments. Their musical style combines elements of dream pop, dub, ambient, and other cinematic forms of music.
Healamonster (Burgess Tomlinson) began writing songs with Tarsier (Rona Rapadas) in New York where they recorded their 2002 debut EP, “00:00:01 (One Second)”. CMJ described it as “a psychedelic fantasyland created with delicate vocals, light piano, a harshly-fuzzed out drum machine and mischievous electronic sounds.”
At the end of 2005, they self-released another EP, “The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car”, which was co-produced by Mitch Osias, a New York Film and TV soundtrack composer whom they first met at Brooklyn venue, Southpaw, while opening for The Sneaker Pimps. The six-track album is full of atmospheric arrangements, subterranean cellos, abstract synthesizers, broken guitar fuzz, programmed percussion, and crystalline vocal harmonies. Throughout 2006, the album was in heavy rotation at KCRW with songs, “Cotton Candy” and “Vista” played by veteran DJs Nic Harcourt (”Morning Becomes Eclectic”) and Jason Bentley (”Metropolis”). The album enjoyed commercial success on an indie level, staking its post on Amoeba Music’s Best Selling Electronic Albums List for a continuous 15 months. Over 500 copies have been sold at indie retail giant, Amoeba Music in Hollywood, CA to date.
H&T have collaborated with different artists, including Ninja Tune/ Mush recording artist, Neotropic. Tarsier also collaborated with electronic/hip hop producer, Alias from Anticon, on two albums (Brookland/Oaklyn, released May 2006 and Plane That Draws A White Line, released September 2006). H&T toured the U.S. extensively throughout 2006, playing 40 dates with the 4-piece Alias & Tarsier live band for these Anticon releases.
In 2008, H&T settled in Los Angeles from New York and recorded tracks for their first full-length, “Cupcake Cave”. The album was produced by Jaymee Carpenter and recorded and mixed by engineer Arnie Geher in Studio City, CA. The result is an ambient pop album baked with layers of enigmatic soundscapes and intricate melodies. A blissful marriage of melodic whimsy and emotive introspection that transports you to a wonderland of acoustic guitars, zither, vocal harmonies, dog collars, UFO sightings, dubby beats, double rainbows, dirty rainbows and of course the sweet serenity of cupcakes. H&T’s goal for this album was to create a peaceful and abstract soundtrack to everyday meandering. It celebrates the constant search for hidden trails and the ones that eventually lead us to caves.
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