As someone who studied science, I knew a bit about hydrothermal vents, these weird deep-sea openings which allow chemically rich hot water to erupt to be the beginning of the food chain for mysterious life. Contrarily to any other place on earth, the energy sustaining the biological communities which live there does not come from the sun but from dissolved materials coming from hydrothermal vents. This is for the biological side, but it was probably very tempting to use the term hydrothermal vents as a band moniker,… some scientists even think life on earth ultimately originated near them. Imagine being the origin of life, the ultimate source of energy…
Too late for you, as the Hydrothermal Vents is already adopted by John Tielli and Tessa Kautzman, a duo from Montreal – and this is a good formula as you may remember about Will Butler and Régine Chassagne. Tielli and Kautzman have an album, ‘Secrets of the Deep!’, and according to their bio ‘they were drawn together by a desire to create the ultimate dance music and by a mutual love of the Pixies’. Their curious and dynamic songs sure evoke a lot of bands from the Talking Heads – ‘Inside a Movie’ – the Pixies – ‘Do the Vent’ – the B52s – ‘Neptune’s Grave’ – while talking about fish, sharks, and the secrets of an imaginary ocean.
The result is surprising and a bit experimental, and if most of the songs have sharp guitars, a steady danceable but nervous rhythm, puzzling harmonies or powerful punchy vocal interplay, spoken words, and overall an intriguing dark vibe, I would say that the sound is quite post-punk avant-garde, despite constantly drawing me back to all these retro influences… ‘You’re all so strange. You are you are/Oh so strange. You are you are’ they sing in Neptune’s Grave, and yeah it’s a bit my feeling.
The Hydrothermal Vents’ concept album ‘Secrets of the Deep!’ will be released on July 5th, and will be followed by a North American tour in the fall. But you can already check their songs out on Bandcamp:
