Tereu Tereu was an American indie band based in Washington, DC, active from approximately 2006 to 2015.
Background
The band began in 2006 as a two-piece group called The Reformation, consisting of Fredericksburg, Virginia residents Ryan Little and Ross Marshall. Over time, the group expanded, adding Adam Bray on bass guitar and Matt Bradshaw on keyboard and trumpet. The band adopted the name "Tereu Tereu" from T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land (1922), where the word "Tereu" appears as an allusion to the classical myth of Philomela and Tereus from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
In 2010, the lineup shifted to include Brendan Polmer on drums and Thomas Orgren on bass, and the band performed as a three-piece based in Washington, D.C. After opening for The Dismemberment Plan and touring to South by Southwest (SXSW) with Carol Bui, Orgren left the group, and Tereu Tereu continued as a duo.
Music and Style
The band's music incorporated elements of DC post-punk combined with pop sensibilities. They toured throughout the mid-Atlantic region and performed with acts such as Cat Power, Ra Ra Riot, Foals, Jukebox the Ghost, Georgie James, Birdmonster, Maritime, and The Good Life.
Discography
- EP (self-released, 2007) — produced with assistance from Travis Morrison, Devin Ocampo, and Jason Caddell
- All That Keeps Us Together (full-length album, June 16, 2009)
- NW (EP, March 2011)
- Quadrants (second album, September 24, 2013, on Bad Friend Records)
Etymology of the Name
The word "tereu" (lowercase) has a separate history in English. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "tereu" has been used since the 1570s to represent a note of the nightingale. It is also the vocative form of "Tereus," the Thracian king who, in Ovid's myth, raped Philomela. In The Waste Land, Eliot uses "Tereu" (line 206 of "The Fire Sermon") in a passage that references the nightingale's song and the Philomela story, following the lines "Twit twit twit / Jug jug jug jug jug jug / So rudely forc'd."
