TAUTOLOGIC
WHEELS FALL OFF
Back Story, Track List, and Credits
The Back Story...
Tautologic is in its third decade (plus or minus a hiatus or two) of making “perfectly normal music for slightly odd people.”
Wheels Fall Off is the first Tautologic album to feature a line-up of the band still intact at the time of its release - Ethan Sellers (keys/vocals/production), Patrick Buzby (drums), Nathan Britsch (bass), Chris Greene (saxes), Emily Albright (violin, vocals), and Jay Montana (guitar). “New guy” Montana has - at the time of the album’s completion - been with the band for 10 years, making this the longest-lived line-up in Tautologic history. Tautologic had some help from special guests - Tom Culver (cello), Johnny Showtime Janowiak (trombone), John Moore, Jr. (trumpet), and Sellers’ own children. Sellers kept the guest list limited, otherwise - preferring to celebrate the band’s talents and stage-honed interplay.
Tautologic completed most of Wheels Fall Off even before releasing its 2018 album Re:Psychle. Determined to capture their live chemistry, Tautologic recorded roughly half of the album at a single live full-band session with Rick Barnes at Rax Trax Recording in late 2013. Sellers recorded overdubs at his home studio, culminating in a COVID-19-inspired recording binge in the spring and early summer of 2020. An Illinois Arts Council grant generously defrayed the cost of Barnes mixing the album and provided a more urgent timeline to complete the album.
The music for Wheels Fall Off is an organic mash-up and a study in contrasts. Sellers’ through-composed pieces leave openings for in-studio improvisation. Male and female vocalists trade leads and harmonize. Short vocal-centered songs co-exist with long instrumental epics. Prog-rock and fusion workouts share space with Afro-Caribbean, zydeco, funk, blues, and samba grooves. There are organic whole-band recordings, and layers of one-man-choir vocals, one-woman string sections, guitar armies, horn sections, synthesizer mini-odysseys, and post-production audio mangling.
Many of Sellers’ lyrics on Wheels Fall Off use everyday details to flesh out wry personal observations. Other songs - like the title track and “That’s What I Hear” - resonate uncannily with current world events, although they date 5-6 (or more) years prior to the pandemic, civil unrest, and election of 2020. Perhaps history itself is Tautologic.
Tracklist/Credits
1. Wheels Fall Off - Intro
2. That's What I Hear
3. Memo to Yourself
4. Rocket Surgery
5. Fat, Dumb, and Happy
6. Covered In Grit
7. Exit Strategy
8. Summer, 1995
9. High School Reunion
10. Wheels Fall Off
Produced by Ethan Taylor Sellers
Recorded by Rick Barnes at Rax Trax Recording and Ethan Taylor Sellers at home
Additional recording by Brian Frost and Jay Montana
Mixed and Mastered by Rick Barnes at Rax Trax Recording
Tautologic is:
Emily Albright (violin, vocals)
Pat Buzby (drums)
Nathan Britsch (bass)
Chris Greene (tenor and soprano sax)
Jay Montana (electric guitars)
Ethan Sellers (keyboards, vocals)
With Special Guests:
Tom Culver (cello, track 10)
Johnny Showtime Janowiak (trombone, track 6)
John Moore, Jr. (trumpet, track 6)
Ezekiel and Naomi Sellers (vocals, track 1)
All songs by Ethan Taylor Sellers, except “Covered In Grit.”
“Covered In Grit” music/lyrics by Ethan Taylor Sellers, with verse vocal melody by Emily Albright.
All songs © their respective authors and published by Turtle Down Music, LLC.
Sound recording is © 2021 Turtle Down Music, LLC.
All album artwork is © 2021 Ethan Taylor Sellers and licensed to Turtle Down Music.
All rights reserved.