Tasseomancy – Do Easy album review: weirdly good folk-pop

Do Easy
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Artist: TASSEOMANCY
Genre: Alternative
Label: Bella Union

Naming your band after the skill of fortune telling with tea leaves might make you a target for ridicule, but when it directly references twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman’s great-great grandmother – who in the 19th century, during anti-Jewish pogroms, fled Russia for Canada – it starts to make sense.

As does this album, which directs the sisters' airy, experimental folk-pop into areas usually sidelined. The stall is set out from the first track (Dead Can Dance & Neil Young), which fuses alternative with traditional.

It gets a bit weirder after that, but in a good way (mostly). Jimi Infiniti, 29 Palms, the title track and Gentle Man zigzag between compelling and implausible, while final track, Eli, is the closest thing we've heard in many years to 1970s Dutch prog band Focus. Which is not necessarily a recommendation. tasseomancy.bandcamp.com

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in popular culture