TAU are a revolving door collective led by Shaun Mulrooney, an Irish born and Berlin-based musician. His fellow sonic travellers are Earl Harvin, drummer with Tindersticks, a renowned Afrofuturist legend, Idris Ackamoor of The Pyramids, and modern Indian classical music pioneers, Lalitha and Nandini, aka the LN Sisters.
Tau and The Drones of Praise is Mulrooney's second Tau album and follow up to TAU TAU TAU in 2016. Cerys Matthews and Tom Ravenscroft of BBC 6 Music have already championed their experimental progressive drone rock and psych, which soaks up influences from just about everywhere.
It's Already Written opens the album with a thrilling statement of intent topped off with evocative vocals and chanting from Mulrooney and the LN Sisters. The Craw (where Mulrooney channels his Celtic roots), The Sturgeon, New Medicine, and The Seer, are all even better. These bold and daring songs elevate TAU & The Drones of Praise as a cut above the rest.
Mulrooney is best known as the charismatic singer of former Dublin rock band Humanzi, who were the subject of a blaze of hype around the mid-noughties as cover stars of an ill-fated Irish edition of NME. TAU is a complete re-invention, heralding another riveting chapter in Mulrooney's Berlin renaissance. TAU and The Drones of Praise features the best music he's authored yet.
