Album Info Hide Show Artist: Other Lives Album: Tamer Animals Released: Europe, 2021 Tracklist: A1 Dark Horse A2 As I Lay My Head Down A3 For 12 A4 Tamer Animals A5 Dust Bowl III B1 Weather B2 Old Statues B3 Woodwind B4 Desert B5 Landforms B6 Heading East Info About Buying Vinyl From Our Record Store We are a small independent record store located at 211 High St, Preston in Melbourne, Australia (North of Northcote, between Thornbury & Reservoir) We buy and sell new and used vinyl records – if you have a collection you’d like to sell please click here . We ship Australia wide for a flat rate of $10 for standard shipping or $15 for express post. Free Shipping for orders $150 and over. You can also pick up your order in store, just select Local Pickup at the checkout. We also ship internationally – prices vary depending on weight and location. We ship vinyls in thick, rigid carboard mailers with a crushable zone on either side, and for extra safety we bubble wrap the records. 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You can contact our Melbourne record shop at (03) 9939 3807 or at [email protected] Happy Listening! Description Hide Show Tamer Animals arrived in 2011 with the kind of quiet confidence that sneaks up on you. Other Lives had already hinted at their orchestral leanings, but here the Oklahoma band turned them into a world. It feels built plank by plank in a small room, strings and woodwinds braided into pianos, hand percussion, and those unhurried rhythms that suggest long drives across big skies. You can hear the patience in it. Nothing rushes. Everything slides into place. Jesse Tabishs voice sits at the center, warm and a little weathered, like a storyteller leaning over the table after midnight. Around him, the bands multi-instrumental instincts make the songs feel tactile. They stack harmoniums and violins, add low brass for shade, then pull back so a single piano figure can carry a verse. Its the arrangement craft that makes Tamer Animals feel cinematic without ever turning into wallpaper. Plenty of records chase mood. This one builds habitat. For 12 remains the records calling card, and not just because it was the single that got them in front of more ears. The song moves with a steady, trotting pulse, guitar lines curling like heat mirages, and a melody that feels lifted from a half-remembered western. Its a widescreen moment, yet it keeps its edges soft, more mirage than panorama. Title track Tamer Animals is the slow bloom, piano ticking like a clock while strings and voice gather into something gently seismic. Then theres Dust Bowl III, which leans into place and memory. The lyric nod to the regions history matters less than the way the arrangement evokes dry wind and distance. Even if youve never set foot in Stillwater, youll feel the dust on your sleeves. Part of the appeal is how human the record sounds. You can hear the care in the mic placements, the layering, the little breaths between phrases. The band spent real time shaping these pieces, and it shows. They had the chops to pull it off live too, which is why it made perfect sense when Radiohead tapped Other Lives as openers on their 2012 tour. Those arena nights put this patient, orchestral folk-rock in front of crowds who came for polyrhythms and glitch, and it worked. The overlap is the devotion to texture, to building a song from tiny gears instead of blunt force. Critics heard it right away. Outlets like Pitchfork and NPR zeroed in on the meticulous arrangements and the albums sense of place, and fans latched onto favorites. Old Statues is a sleeper that blooms with repeated listens, the kind of track that sets a mood for an entire afternoon. As I Lay My Head Down brings the lights low and lets Tabishs phrasing carry the emotional weight. Nothing here is showy for its own sake. Even when the band stacks strings upon strings, theres restraint. The songs never lose their bones. If youre crate-digging, Tamer Animals vinyl is a keeper. The low-end thrum of the floor toms, the air on the strings, the little room sounds that digital tends to flatten all come alive on wax. Ive seen Other Lives vinyl tucked into the staff-picks shelf more than once, usually with a handwritten note that says something like cinematic folk for late nights. Thats pretty spot on. If you like to buy Other Lives records online, keep an eye on reissues and colored variants, since they tend to disappear fast. And if youre lucky enough to stumble across a clean copy at a Melbourne record store while browsing through vinyl records Australia style, dont overthink it. Take it home and let it unfurl. What keeps me coming back is the balance. Tamer Animals is rich but never cloying, intimate but not small. It finds a middle path between the indie orchestral sweep of the late 2000s and the dusty Americana that runs through Oklahoma songwriting, turning both into something recognizably theirs. Even now, as theyve continued to evolve, this record feels like a statement piece. Its the one that made casual listeners into loyalists. So yes, file it next to the quiet classics. Spin it when the house is still and the light is getting low. Other Lives albums on vinyl tend to reward that kind of time, and this one may be the most generous of the bunch. The songs dont shout to be remembered. They settle in, and then they stay. Product Reviews Hide Show Write a Review