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Hear All Tiny Creatures’ Robo-Psych Triumph ‘The Book’

All Tiny Creatures 'The Book' Stream Dark Clock

Wisconsin electro-pop tinkerers All Tiny Creatures move freely between ideas and eras on their forthcoming second long-player, Dark Clock. What’s remarkable is how easily it all blends together. Take “The Book,” for example. Throbbing beatwork transitions into a full-band jam, which soon becomes the pulsating stuff of Animal Collective-style hybridized psych. But before the song’s gorgeously cresting culmination, we’re greeted by a ’90s big beat build, all while a robot beamed in from another era serenades us about love. That voice actually belongs to electronic music pioneer Charles Dodge — more or less.

ATC founder Thomas Wineck explains that his own track was born “when I was listening to [Dodge’s] ‘The Story of Our Lives,’ which he made in 1976 using the voice synthesis computer program he was working on at the time. Around 8:30, the words, ‘For her, love is a sacrifice,’ pop up, and had such a tremendous melody [and] lyrical presence that I knew I had to write a song around it.” So he did, of course, with help from bandmates Andrew Fitzpatrick, Matt Skemp and Ben Derickson. “We sent it to Mr. Dodge and he thankfully gave us his permission to use the sample.”

Of course, it’s All Tiny Creatures’ voices that rings the loudest. If the members’ names sound familiar, it’s probably because they’re regulars in the ever-bustling local music community. All but Derickson play in Volcano Choir, the experimental outfit fronted by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon — which is to say they’re no slouches when it comes to making noise that demands our attention. Dark Clock arrive via Hometapes on June 25.

All Tiny Creatures, Dark Clock track list:

1. “Comets”
2. “A Lone Sound”
3. “Hypertext”
4. “All Die Out”
5. “Impossible”
6. “Quickest Cut”
7. “The Book”
8. “Chase Lights”
9. “Wave Particles”
10. “Reunion”