Need to Know: Deep Time

When I spoke to the indie-pop duo behind Deep Time (nee YellowFever), they hadn't really spent much time out of the house. For over two weeks, Jennifer Moore and Adam Jones had been at Adam's house writing. The Austin-based act, whose self-titled debut album comes out July 10 via Hardly Art, were working on more of their signature, genre-transcending, minimalist pop ("Minimal Weirdo Pop" as the band's Facebook page describes it).

Though the band had undergone a lot of changes, changing its name and signing to Seattle's Hardly Art label, it was good to know that they were still making the music that made me sit up and take notice back when they were YellowFever--just with a bit more polish and variety.

Out: You recently changed your name. Why did you pick "Deep Time?"

Jennifer Moore: We made lots and lots of lists and what we came up with was all terrible. We both really liked the concept of it. It's a geological term for how the Earth is really old and the scale of time as far as rocks and plates moving and all that. It's pretty regular but it takes a long time. It's too big for us to see in the span of a human life. That's kind of exciting in a way. And we like rocks. It's a big picture kind of thing and we like the way it sounds.

What would you say your influences are as musicians?

JM: I like a lot of vocal-centered music, obviously, because I'm a singer. I sang a lot of choral music when I was younger. I like a lot of '60s girl group music. Just hanging out with Adam made me like more noisy things. But, I don't know, I like Philip Glass.

Adam Jones: I think it's kind of fun to borrow or continue ideas from music that's bubbly like pop music and that general idea from a totally different realm and put it in your realm. That normally makes very interesting things; it could be anything really. It could be African music or weird things you get from the library. Even very traditional music, orchestral music, it could be anything.

How would you describe the type of music you make?

JM: Pop music. Kind of minimal, I think there ends up being a lot of space in it. We like everything that we add to be necessary. Everything thing we put in, every instrument part, is thought about a lot. I'm not sure what kind of pop music.

AJ: I don't really care about genre, I just try and think new things up. We're not heading in a particular direction.

JM: It's just cool finding things we think are interesting.

We've gotten a taste of the new album, what would you say about the album as a whole?

JM: It's all over the place, but you can expect more songs with really strong vocal melodies. We wanted each song to be different.

Do you think your sound has changed or evolved since your debut?

AJ: Maybe it's more focused. Our arrangements are more complicated and a little more out there than it was before. It's much cleaner sounding; more tidy and bright. I think we've gotten more comfortable trying different ways of writing. I hope were growing as a band.

Check out the band's album here.