By George Palathingal
WITH its fuzzy blues-rock riffs, swirling vocals and rhythms seemingly purpose-built for stoners to nod to, the self-titled EP Tame Impala sounds like it was recorded in London in the late 1960s by a four- or five-piece halfway to oblivion.
It was actually put to tape last year, instrument by instrument, by a Western Australian barely into his 20s by the name of Kevin Parker.
"I give it the name 'jamming in the fourth dimension' because you're jamming with yourself after you've done the take," he says. "When I do the drumming, I kind of signal various things to remind myself about what I'm going to go into next. When you play other instruments over the top, it's kind of like communicating with yourself, like, a few minutes ago when you did the drums, or like a few hours ago. It's fun."
In the studio, the "band" has basically been Parker. Now that they play live - as Parker puts it, "kind of for the sake of performing . . . Tame Impala was originally and has always been mainly just a recording project" - they are a three-piece, with Jay Watson and Dominic Simper backing singer-guitarist Parker on drums and bass, respectively, although they sometimes swap instruments, even onstage.
"Well, this is [part of] our whole kind of friendship circle that we have at home," Parker says. "It's not necessarily just Tame Impala; Tame Impala is just one of the combinations of bands that we have in Perth."
Despite their scintillating chemistry live and intoxicating sound, one potential niggle remains: they most remind you of ancient rockers Cream - despite each Impala bloke having been born 20 years after Cream's heyday. Are they not afraid of the stigma that comes with the "retro" tag?
"I just love those kind of sounds," Parker says. "It's more of a sonic thing than a statement of, you know, trying to reinvent the past or something like that. I really couldn't care about what it was like back then . . . I care most about how it sounds and how it feels."
In fact, as much as he loves the music of the '60s, Parker is more inspired by the approach of more modern artists.
"I've been listening to a lot of . . . they call it trip-hop but I don't think it's the right word; bands like Portishead, basically 'producer acts' where they're completely on top of all their sounds. Their drum sounds are not the most hi-fi or the most, like, clear-sounding - they're just the ones that sound the best."