ABOUT
"The wheel is compelled to turn. Sometimes artists need part the curtian and look out beyond the audience, the horizon and use their collective faith and talent to forget what they know, the history, the forms, the charts and the maps...and just play past the moment that has just passed. Searching the new without fear or intent...This is how the wheel turns. I think this is how these humans make music. Yup."
-Billy Conway (Morphine)
Thank God For Science is a one of a kind musical medium that explores sonic and musical vocabularies.
Jeremy Moses Curtis (Booker T, Jeffrey Foucault) compiled years of home studio demos and with the help of some trusted musicians, shaped them into an instrumental record titled: "Volume One". The core studio band of drummer Peter MacLean (Maceo Parker), The Blue Ribbons' James Rohr on keyboards / Mike Castellana on guitar, recorded the initial basics over a weekend with the help of producer Marc Pinansky. In the following months, Laurence Scudder (Brothers McCann) added his refined blend of natural and effected Viola while Barry Rothman (Radio Swan) channeled sounds from the ether via vintage turntables and effect pedals to round out a recording whose unique aural atmosphere is wholly its own. Since then, the players have performed dozens of shows, released "Live", “Humans Are Special” and coalesced into what is now known as Thank God For Science: a group that continues to search for harmony, chaos, enlightenment, and every note in between.
PRESS
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD BY AIMSEL PONTI - OCTOBER 7, 2019
Sometimes when it comes to discovering new music, timing is everything. This discovery began at 3 a.m. on a recent Monday, when I awoke in the throes of an allergy attack that kept me up for the better part of an hour. Sleep eluded me long enough that I grabbed my phone and started scrolling through work email. I came across one telling me about a band based in Providence and Boston called Thank God For Science, their new album “Humans Are Special” and about their upcoming show in Portland.
The press release described the album like this: “Imagine a cross-country trek, a landscape both strange and familiar: You check into a roadside motel and flip on the tube, jiggle the rabbit ears. Scrambled signals. Some sort of cosmic-cable, a dimly lit marquee missing litters.” I thought to myself that this was either a plot for the next David Lynch film or it was a band I needed to make a point of listening to. (MORE HERE)
RED LINE ROOTS by Brian Carroll - May 16, 2016
In short, this is music that moves. It moves in and around itself with multiple layers and levels and also within the listener. Seriously, it has an almost trancelike enhancing power that just forces you into soul mode. I mean shit, I just feel cooler listening to these tunes. You should listen too. Thank God For Science is instrumental music for musicians. It isn’t pretentious or overly complex. Its not jam band music, but its not jazz improvisation, in a way its kind of both and encompasses the better parts of those things. I often times have a difficult time relating to primarily instrumental records, but TGFS soaked deep into my skin and left an impression on me that won’t soon seep out. There is just something special about music that can do that...(MORE HERE)
MUSIC SAVAGE By Steve Benoit - May 25, 2016
And THAT folks is exactly what this album can do. I’m telling you this from personal experience. No two tracks are the same, yet they seem to blend perfectly together as you go about whatever is occupying your mind. Taking you from an energy filled moment of victory to one that puts you in a field on a weekend enjoying the sun, to hanging out with Hunter Thompson in dirty biker bar in a matter of minutes. Maybe this is where I should have put that line about this album being what you want it to be. Random thought: we should probably start a #CoolShitMadeWhileListeningToThankGodForScience hashtag...(MORE HERE)
NO DEPRESSION By Frank Gutch Jr. - June 5, 2016
You see where I'm going here? The band has taken the music of the past and weaved/wove/woven a new pattern, all instrumental, and would be very pleasant except that these guys are all on the same page and really know how to play! Not only that, it is sequenced beautifully, the songs flowing in and out as if the music was meant to be written exactly that way.
Players are going to appreciate this--- the way it sounds, the way it was put together. One of my favorite adventurous musicians, John Orsi, would love it too, may he rest in peace. He experimented with music much in the same way with his various bands, Knitting In Twilight and the others, hoping to capture those moments in time, and he did. So does Thank God For Science...(MORE HERE)
TELEGRAM AND GAZETTE By Victor Infante - June 16,2016
There is no way to easily encapsulate “Thank God For Science: Volume 1,” the mostly instrumental album by bassist Jeremy Moses Curtis and a diverse roster of talented musicians. You end up saying something along the lines of, “this is what would happen if William S. Burroughs and Negativeland teamed up to make a jazz album,” but even that’s not quite right. To put it bluntly, this album is weird. It’s also overwhelmingly beautiful at points, and massively unpredictable...(MORE HERE)
THE DELI MAGAZINE-NYC-By Brian Varneke
Thank God For Science is an intergalactic collage of grooves, soaring synths, orchestral arrangements, and spoken word monologues, coming together to form a debut record in Volume One. The album is a sort of auditory found art piece, taking concepts and styles that you are familiar with and combining them in a way that is unique and eclectic. Fully instrumental, Volume One would work just as well as a film soundtrack as a full-length album.
By Brian Varneke