Selling Points
1. Instantly sold out of original vinyl version of Tum on the revered St. Ives label.

2. The Impossible Shapes are always on tour and will plan Spring 2006 touring plans around the CD launch of Tum.

3. Internet and retail marketing blitz to occur.

From corner to corner of their dew spritzered discography, now five full-lengths deep, The Impossible Shapes of Indiana have electri-

cally projected what stands as a direct and feverish summoning on the late 60s sugar-sandoz-lick of the pop-folk format. Whilst 2005’s

critically pumped Horus initiated escalation into a milkwood tapestry of a man vs. earth vs. spirit conceptual acorn, Tum, the 300 edi-

tion LP issued just months before is their most thoroughly realized confirmation of man as freedom as seed. Principal songwriters Chris

Barth & Aaron Deer nefariously split that nut into mighty gush, fattening this garage cum psyche-chamber session enough to peel back

grooves from the cornerstones of Shirley Collins’ Folkways side False True Lovers to Bobb Trimble’s Harvest of Dreams. Now reis-

sued on unlimited CD, Tum is deliciously reborn for all.

Formed in 1998 the Shapes -- Barth (guitar, vocalist), Deer (organ, bass) Jason Groth (guitar) and Mark Rice (drums) -- have kept a

profoundly articulate sense of classic song/dream structure whether they are billowing in drenched multi-tacked gauze like Indianapolis

forefathers Zerfas or snarled in amp-buzz annihilation of power-quartet stage performances. On the flip, Barth can pixie dance from

guitar play/vocal slay in a quaint yet sexually sly role of piper against Deer’s counterpoint-heavy arrangements of tape-spliced fuckery.

Like meat-pulp quicksand, they pull you deep in. Tum is buoyed by these three streams from the opening Bram Martin-like invoca-

tion through the scratch orchestral vision of “Twisted Sol Epoch” toward the shimmering gallop heavy “Florida Silver Springs.”

Easily the rawest tapes of the Shapes canon, Tum is a potent album, self-produced and directed to articulate a peak without contempo-

rary parallels that easily rides against the sloshed chunks of bland neo-folk/whatevers that adds to the rising murk. As backup in the

battle, original member Peter King, Amy Karr (The Mean-agers) and Stefan Gabriel contribute throughout. These 17 songs/moments

act like spell casting vessels...as hot-mouthed barefoot children with gloved fists pounding out the body-shuddering call of all to return,

neck-deep, to the earth-cult. Time to carve some bark into a ticket and get in line.

The wide umbrella of activity outside the Impossible Shapes stretches to each member’s participation and full-on rolls in The Coke

Dares (Essay Records), John Wilkes Booze (Kill Rock Stars), Barth’s solo persona NormanOak (Secretly Canadian) and Deer’s

solo side Horns of Happiness (Secretly Canadian).

-- Eric Weddle

Boylan Heights, NC

THE IMPOSSIBLE SHAPES

TUM

LABEL: Secretly Canadian
CAT #: SC132
FORMAT: CD
UPC #: 656605013220 CD

CD BOX LOT: 25
STREET DATE: March 7, 2006

Ra In Thy Rising • Florida Silver Springs • The Working Vessel • Pixie Pride •

Fulgent Fields • Tahuti, Splendid Scribe • Late Summer Sky • Kephra • Hornbeam • Pan-ther •

Wild West Wake Us Up • Hathor • Our Love Lives • Twisted Sol Epoch • Willow Willow Yew • Little Gloves • Tum