"I am a philanthropist of the absurd. I can count on one hand the times I’ve witnessed transcendent absurdity in music or art where I knew I had to intervene with my time, energy and money. In the case of the band "Domestication Of Animals," I became aware of the work of the young bandleader Mooey Moobau (Joe Tepperman) in the mid 2000’s and realized he was creating art that was ground-breaking and ahead of its time. I made it a mission to help him unleash his music on the world ...within the scope of my tiny label and its modest reach.
The first time I heard “What Can I Say” it short-circuited my brain. It’s a perfect spastic seizure of collage rock (collage, not college) like I’ve never heard before. It’s still the sound of the future and I wish more artists were this inventive and interesting. “My Baby Loves Western Civilization” is another frenetic masterpiece that rewired my short-circuited brain incorrectly and I’ve never fully recovered from what it did to me. Warning: This music is very challenging. In fact, it’s so challenging I don’t think i’ve ever listened to the entire album, and I paid to have it released! For me, it wasn’t a question of its palatability, but of its importance to music.
Ryan Avery, a fellow philanthropist of oddball music has taken it upon themself to re-release this album on their own label, Heirloom Records and I’m glad they are doing it. They sent me a link to the album and asked me to listen to it so I could write a few words, but I refused to download it. Again, this does not mean it’s not a brilliant album, it clearly is. But just like I wasn’t ready for it in 2008 when I put it out, I’m still not ready in 2021. Come to think of it, if I close my eyes I can’t even tell you the title of the album from memory because it’s so nonsensical and strange. It’s something about ants, box cars and dogs, I believe. I’ll take a few guesses at the title without looking:
“Ants unpack the strange bottom fruits from box cars with dogs”
“Within the Ant box of unpacked fruits the dogs remain within their hot cars”
“Dogs dance to dream of boxes packed with dried ants and fruits”
I am proud to have been a part of putting this album out to the world and I'm grateful to Heirloom Records for taking the torch from me.. Maybe I will be brave enough to listen to it one day."-Ego Plum
credits
released February 1, 2008
Eddie Rivas recorded these songs at Total Annihilation Studios in L.A. during 2005 and 2006. Joe edited them further
Joe Tepperman played bass, keyboard and trombone.
Grant Lovelace played guitar & keyboard
Mike Rings played drums.
We all sang.
We were joined by:
Andrew Duncan, who played trumpet & percussion
Eddie Rivas played tenor sax
Yohei Shikano sang backup
Joe wrote songs 1, 2, 3 and 6
Grant wrote the guitar part for song 3 and all of song 5
Mike wrote song 4
Song 7 was written by bjork
After Asleep In The Sea Owen went on to start the recording project ROAR. A handful of the songs on this album are re-working of AITS songs but really the whole ROAR catalog is worth checking out. Heirloom Records
Members of the Dietrichs and The Black Jacket went on to play in this ska band that was really fun. This tour EP is such a fun little album. But they pretty much broke up soon after this. Heirloom Records
Around the end of Sugarbush's career Ryan and Dimitri started playing in this conspiracy theory themed, Beatles/Beach Boys-esque pop group that had such fun/wild live shows. Heirloom Records
supported by 4 fans who also own “Plays The Screams of Drowning Ants, Bites of The Box-Packed Dogs”
Great comp, 360% stupid fun from front to butt. But it's the seat-ripping Girls at Our Best cover I need on endless repeat (not to slight DD Owen, B Kipper, C Shaft, A Doom, P Lino, etc). contendo
Noisy, unsettling experimental pop in turns touching and political. From now until 3/5, 50% of proceeds go to Planned Parenthood/ACLU. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 8, 2017