Other Lives, Tamer Animals

A few months back, Other Lives, who hail from Stillwater, Oklahoma, release there sophomore album, Tamer Animals. I had read that it took the band almost 14 months to complete it. Listening to it, you know why. It is a dramatic album that is both orchestrally and sonically rich. The attention that the band has paid to detail throughout the album is self evident and listening to it becomes a wonderful exercise in identifying all of the instruments and sounds placed within these songs.  

Last week I had an opportunity to see Other Lives play live at the Paramount Theatre here in Seattle. Having listen to Tamer Animals many times, I was very curious to see how they actually built these songs and how much of what I was hearing on the album was done with live instruments vs. using synthesizers and sampled sounds. I was amazed to see and hear that almost everything that I was hearing was actually being played lived by all five members of the band. They are all multi-instrumentalists in every sense of the word. At one point I had counted six different instruments that Jonathan Mooney had played in the span of two songs: violin, piano, guitar, trumpet, xylophone, and percussions. After seeing them play live, my appreciation for what they have accomplished with Tamer Animals is even greater than before. 

Below are three in-studio performances that the band did last week for hear*ya at Shirk Music & Sound in Chicago. Seeing them play some of their songs again live was a real treat and very cool. Instruments change from one song to the next so take the time to watch them all. They are a very impressive band.