Visit Forest of Tongue on MySpace
Forest of Tongue is a band from Long Beach, California that has a rough, edgy, ethereal rock sound. I was lucky enough to get a hold of their Bacon and Eggs EP. The EP has 6 songs and is 29 minutes and 4 seconds long. This kind of music is cool to listen to at night on headphones in a dimly lit room. I like listening to Forest of Tongue when I’m alone because I don’t want to care if the other person who is listening with me is having a good time or not. I don’t care that their sound is distant and Lo-Fi, I like what they are doing. The EP sounds live, without a whole lot of post-production. Even though the vocals were recorded after and separately from the instruments, they still sound integrated and capture a distant, thought provoking sound. The drumming on the first song on the EP, “legs dissolve into hips” is excellent and the repeating guitar line is good. The song is aggressive in parts and almost pastoral in others. I love it when the singer, says, “…the status reports” it is perfectly timed.
You can listen to these songs while you read this article by clicking here and visiting Forest of Tongue’s MySpace Page. From their you can listen to 4 of the 6 songs from the Bacon and Eggs EP. After you listen to “legs dissolve into hips” you should check out the track, “dreary dreaming.” This song has a hypnotic guitar line that is played over another guitar lick. The polyphony is well done and quite effective. When the drums kick in, they seem to accent the song rather than laying down a steady beat. It sounds cool and at 2 minutes and 45 seconds the drums get aggressive and then the song changes into a estranged rock triumph before it snaps back into the previous sound. Since Forest of Tongue is a duo, they have a very intimate sound that comes across well on this song.
The last song on the EP called, “the jam on your toast” is very laid back. I like how the vocals seem to echo from the ether to bring sighs of melodic contemplation. The song has an interesting structure and about two-thirds the way through, there is a large swell of drumming and vocal intensity. It sounds like a ghostly invocation of a memory from a lonely bridge…somewhere in New England. The guitar sounds great and pulls you into the mood of the song. “the jam on your toast” really doesn’t sound like a morning, breakfast-like song. It is definitely nighttime music.
Those three songs were my favorite of the six that were on the Bacon and Eggs EP. It isn’t easy pegging exactly what kind of music is on the EP. But the less I try and think about what kind of music it is trying to be, the more I enjoy the unique sound that the Bacon and Eggs EP has to offer. The music assists in introspection. The EP is $3 and if you are interested in a copy, you should contact Forest of Tongue via MySpace. There you can preview my three favorite songs from the EP before picking up a copy.
-Tyler