Tasseomancy is the musical project of twin sisters, Sari and Romy Lightman. Influenced by the likes of Robbie Basho, Broadcast, Mary Margaret O’hara, This Mortal Coil and Alice Coltrane’s Turiya Sings, the sisters have developed a unique sound, combining the lyrical and vocal traditions of folk music with the experimental attitudes of psychedelia, new wave and new age music. In 2011, the sisters released Ulalume, a collaborative record with Timber Timbre, while also joining the electronic queer group, Austra. They’ve since left the band to focus on their own project, and in April 2015, Tasseomancy released Palm Wine Revisited on Healing Power Records.

Questions

What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
All the small things comprise a life lived; books, body parts, staying up way too late listening to old records, marijuana smoke, fire, fruits and vegetables, all plants, some paints, conversations not meant to be over-heard, long distances done in a shorter amount, old people who lay it down and are no longer alive.

How and when did you get into making music?
My sister and I have been singing on table-tops since the age of three. ‘Real Music’ came later along with adolescence and surplus of unexpected feeling.

What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Alice Coltrane’s Turiya Sings
This Mortal Coil – It will end in Tears
Judee Sill – Heart Food
Getatchew Mekurya – Shellela 45
Philip Glass – Agua de Amazonas

What do you associate with Berlin?
A particular density/thickness in the streets, lentil soup at any hour.

What’s your favourite place in your town?
Barbie Deinhoff, Devil’s Mountain, laying among beautiful bodies in the summer time by the canals at the Turkish Market.

If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Devote myself to scent instead, become a botanist.

What was the last record you bought?
Master Wilburn Burchettes Psychic Meditation Music

Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Charlie Chaplin

What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Performing in Istanbul. We love that city.

How important is technology to your creative process?
For us the song-writing process begins with instruments, ideas, pens and paper. The modern technology comes later on in relation to composition and creating the essential texture.

Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career?
No, its Just Us Kids

Our Favourites:

The grass harp
https://youtu.be/CCIkETUMksg

Reality