The debut release from Vancouver's Fond Of Tigers, A Thing To Live With, is a diverse and challenging listen that defies simple genre classification. In just under 50 minutes, the band (variously described in print as "compelling", "eclectic", "transcendent", "hypnotic", and "post-everything") moves between sounds which reference prog-rock freakouts, pastoral, back-porch picking, wonky jazz, hardcore math-metal, and ambient drone, without ever coming across as a pastiche act.

Like a breathless Tortoise, the group blazes through shifting rhythm patterns and unwieldy-but-listenable melodic lines written with the meticulous precision of music-school nerds, but played with eviction-party abandon. There's a psychedelic element to the music, but although the trumpet and violin are sometimes unrecognizably effected, there's more bewilderment that results from the combination of acoustic sounds/layers, the shape-shifting melodic phrases, and the overall structures. One reviewer called the band's sound a "kaleidoscopic sonic wonder".

The material on a thing to live with was recorded live, with all the musicians and amplifiers in one room, by Jesse Gander at the Hive. The trumpet and violin effects were controlled live by the players.

Formed in 2003, this dynamic and adventurous 7-piece (includes two drummers!) inhabits an undefined space somewhere in the outlands of avant-rock. As one writer said, it's "crazy, thrilling music".

Fond Of Tigers is made up of some of Vancouver’s finest, young and creative musicians on the scene today. They are: Morgan McDonald (The Buttless Chaps) on keyboards, JP Carter (Inhabitants, Great Aunt Ida) on trumpet, Skye Brooks (Inhabitants, Kevin House) on drums, Dan Gaucher (Rabnett 5, October Trio) on drums Jesse Zubot (Zubot & Dawson, LaConnor) on violin, Shanto Battacharya (Field) on bass and Stephen Lyons (Heartwarmongering) on guitar.

"...instrumental wonders...atmospheric and very Chicago." - The Globe and Mail
“...a new sound, and a mark of true genius." - Terminal City

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