Psychedelic Pop Band Three Minute Tease Release New Single 'Drinking Horn' to Celebrate 9/23 Release of New CD, 'Bite The Hand'

Three Minute Tease, the band comprised of Sacramento-born/Berlin-based cult songwriter Anton Barbeau (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Andy Metcalfe (bass) and Morris Windsor (drums), who are probably best known for their work in the Soft Boys/Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, have developed a reputation for their "pre-apocalyptic psychedelic pop". The group released their self-titled debut record in 2011 and tomorrow, 9/23, marks the release of their sophomore album, "Bite The Hand", on idiot Records. The album's title, in all its Spinal Tap glory, is a playful reference to Barbeau's career-long inability to as he says, "kiss the right parts of the right people at the right time."

To celebrate the release of the record, here's a link to download the new single "Drinking Horn":

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/167088895%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-4tRjz&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true

"Bite The Hand", which is dedicated to the memory of Barbeau's friend, collaborator and music hero, the late, great Scott Miller of Game Theory, at whose show he first met Windsor and Metcalfe long ago, features a number of guest musicians, including The Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman, who contributes lead guitar to "Tell Me" atop Alexandra Simon's Mellotron choir; Karla and Khoi from San Francisco's Corner Laughers chime in with backing vocals on a handful of tunes; and Vince Di Fiore of Cake plays trumpet on "Tie My Laces." The record was tracked in London with the legendary Pat Collier (Jesus and Mary Chain, Robyn HItchcock) engineering and overdubs were done in Berlin, Brighton, Sacramento and Swindon, the latter handled by Stu Rowe, frequent Andy Partridge (XTC) collaborator.

Though hardly a travelogue, the trio believe that the songs on the new record can be seen as postcards to the world, sent at various times from exotic and mundane locales but ending up together in the same dusty digital shoe box. Says Metcalfe, "It's better than the first one, and the first one was quite good, so we came into the studio fired with enthusiasm and confidence." Windsor adds, "It has a lot more stuff going on... it's swarming with noises."

The story of how Three Minute Tease came to be involves a cassette from 1987, gigs in Hereford, Swindon and London, a tall man in denim holding a plate of potatoes at a wedding, coffee at Cafe Ringo, a formerly fateful trip to Berlin and Kimberley Rew telling Morris "Don't let Anton get too weird." They formed not long after the denim-clad potato man vanished from the scene. The band's first gig was in June 2010 in Oxford, with steady gigs following. As a live band, TMT are a mix of fuzzy guitars and spiky, shambolic fun, but in the studio, it's a much tighter affair. Barbeau says, "For a start, we've taken to recording as a piano trio. Not quite Thelonius Monk, but it certainly makes for a clean and powerful foundation upon which to later lay a thousand Mellotrons and the odd tambourine."

Apart from his collaboration with Metcalfe and Windsor, songwriter/musician Barbeau has released fifteen solo albums, and also tours as a solo act when not gigging with Three Minute Tease. Anton has been included in "SPIN"'s list of "The 100 Greatest Bands You've (probably) Never Heard", where they wrote, "More than two decades after pop-savvy acid-eaters like John Lennon and Syd Barrett cracked the cosmic egg, this Sacramento songwriter slithered forth with a pure distillation of lyrical jabberwocky, brain-burrowing melody and mystical psych-guitar fuzz." He has also received four stars from the "Sunday Times", who included him in a prestigious group of singer-songwriters including Andy Partridge, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and the Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman.

With Barbeau's "...downright genius for offbeat and lush songcraft..." (East Bay Express), and Metcalfe and Windsor's rhythmic foundation, "Bite The Hand" is melodic psychedelic pop with a healthy dose of weird.

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