The Domestication of Animals started without instruments. Imagine a skronky passel of seven adults chomping and whinnying into microphones like donkeys at the trough. To say they were an a capella group is, well, technically correct. Their first and only show in that incarnation happened in Los Angeles in late 2003. Joe Tepperman and Mike Rings had met a couple of years before that when Ego Plum asked them each to play in his Ebola Music Orchestra. Both were inexplicably eager to convince their friends to join them in making loud and nonverbal mouth noises in front of an audience. Fortunately or not, that version of the band did not last very long, though traces of the approach never really disappeared. In 2004 they began playing as a duo with Mike on drums and Joe on bass, translating the natter and stutter of their unaccompanied voices into high-energy fractured glitch rock. And yes, actual words began to come from their mouths as they did this. Though they were not looking for a guitar player, Joe called Grant Lovelace after seeing his flyer asking for bandmates who liked the Raincoats, Moondog, the Residents, and Half Japanese. Grant proved to possess both a subtle sense for harmony and roots in Midwestern noise, a winning combination. To make pop music is sort of the point of the Domestication, and no matter how skewed their idea of what "pop" is, their snobless enthusiasm always wins out over their tendency to be intentionally primitive or arty. Another way to put it... You know how when people "speak in tongues" - when they channel the voices of spirits - they're said to use mostly phonetic sounds that come from their native language? Well then glossolalia is to normal speech as this group is to, say, rock and roll. It is definitely still pop, but it also handles snakes, heals the afflicted, and foretells the future. Joe still plays these songs live with his voice- and verb-heavy solo project, Mooey Moobau.