All Tiny Creatures

Madison quartet All Tiny Creatures’ songs blur the line between what a live band can do and what an electronics-obsessed experimenter can create alone at home. Even the keyboard sounds used by leader Thomas Wincek (also a former member of Collections Of Colonies Of Bees) tend to reach for the early days of minimalist and ambient music, when looped instruments and experiments still sounded warm and analog, rather than sterile and contained. Wincek’s keys and computerized manipulations mesh pretty smoothly with the band’s live bass, drums, and guitar, and the newly added effect of vocals on standouts like “An Iris” (featuring Justin Vernon) and “Glass Bubbles,” off the new full-length Harbors. The lyrics could lend clarification to the songs’ emotional suggestions, but the voices are just as effective when they’re simply oohing and aahing at the excellent The Sea And Cake-meets-Thin Lizzy guitar riffs off lead track “Holography.” 

Updated 03/30/2011