All Tiny Creatures

Multi-instrumentalist Thomas Wincek has released music with several groups in the past 10 years, including the experimental electronic collaborative mainframe Emotional Joystick, the meticulous instrumental quintet Collections of Colonies of Bees, and the ethereal, playful supergroup Volcano Choir, a collaboration between the Bees and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. While each of those has its own distinct sound or mode, they share a certain atmospheric quality that illustrates the avant-garde nature and careful procedure and production of Wincek.

Wincek's newest project, the quartet All Tiny Creatures, makes music that is as spacious as it is saturated. Like the Volcano Choir collaboration, All Tiny Creatures uses guest vocals—from Vernon, members of Megafaun and Ryan Olcott (12 Rods, Mystery Palace) on its debut LP, due later this year on Hometapes—as a compositional starting point. This hypnotic layering of instruments and dramatic repetition of keyboards and loops recall Philip Glass and vibrant dance music, just sculpted into grander themes. For instance, "Tine Feature" becomes a mobius strip of melodies that constantly intertwine over and around themselves. The chanting vocals layered atop become instruments themselves. In "Glass Bubbles," the main structure of the song revolves around a simple and repetitive guitar riff that unravels slowly over five minutes.

Listening to Wincek's complex musical creations is like being drawn into the plot of a film. An introduction begins the journey, with the story taking several twists before finding its pinnacle. The let down can be so slow and gorgeous. —Jedidiah Gant