Tempo No Tempo

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Tempo No Tempo – “Kilometer”

MySpace / Muxtape

Armed with a love of worldly grooves and a lean, gritty take on post-punk, the Bay Area’s Tempo No Tempo are set to release their debut LP “Waking Heat” this fall. Recently scaling down to three members, the band re-invented their sound and approach stripping away the more predictable pop elements of their past EPs, which received considerable praise by the likes of Pitchfork and IHEARTCOMIX. Combining tightly wound guitars, dubby melodic basslines, and crazy polyrhythms, Tempo No Tempo have been described as Reggaeton-punk or tribal New Wave. Regardless of genre, the band has grown into a sound that’s harder to pinpoint, but undeniably immediate and restless.

Tyler McCauley remains on guitar, while taking the reins as the band’s lead vocalist, supported by chants, yelps and harmonies from drummer Alex Kaiser and bassist/keyboardist Jason Wexler. The instrumentals pulse with the energy of James Brown breakbeats, but with the fierce dynamic shifts of early Fugazi. Beyond the dance-punk of their previous efforts, the band’s sonic vocabulary has evolved to tropical punk jams (“Kilometer”), wild fuzz freakouts (“Kindercare,” “Pole Position”) and barely-there ballads (“Half Asleep”). The band’s ambition is paced by their restraint and rhythmic prowess, as ideas are fleshed out over terse beats and angular melodies.

Recording “Waking Heat” at Tiny Telephone studios with Jay Pellicci (Deerhoof, Erase Errata), the album captures their new sonic maturity in a studio for the first time, showcasing their love of studio detail but also their raw live prowess. After touring the West Coast frequently behind their previous EPs, they’re ready to bring their new material on the road this fall for their first national tour.

Tempo No Tempo are ready to re-introduce themselves with a new line-up, a new record, and a new sound.

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“The Buzz: A nervy, worked-up band from San Francisco, Tempo No Tempo have been kicking around for nearly four years now, getting steadily better while remaining stubbornly under the radar. Their latest EP should change all that: blending hurtling dance rhythms with jabbing, elbowing post-punk guitars, the group takes a literal approach to the notion of ‘panic at the disco.’
Listen If: Dancing stresses you out a little, and you want your music to reflect that anxiety.
Key Track: The terrifically severe ‘Kilometer,’ where the clanging guitars feel like a starting bell, setting the song’s tense quiver in motion. Vocalist Tyler McCauley coos, ‘I could never wait for you,’ and it’s true — no sooner does are the words out of his mouth than he vanishes, leaving us dead in the middle of a guitar solo that whips around as wildly as a cut power line.” (Rolling Stone)

“San Francisco’s Tempo No Tempo cites James Brown as an influence, but what comes through the speakers is something bound to rhythm, yet far more angular and deliciously imbalanced (not that the Godfather Of Soul was a straight arrow by any means). On the band’s debut LP, following a couple of well-received EPs, Tempo No Tempo does an oddly effective job of stringing together jagged bursts of guitar, significantly tribal beats, strange Middle Eastern strumming and (occasionally) placid Jarre-styled synthesizer swells…[T]he ideas are inspired and all together bring to mind those proto dance-punk records by Q And Not U, or the jaunty claustrophobia of Les Savy Fav.” (LA Weekly)