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LP
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MORR 190LP
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Reissue of the third album by Swedish trio Tape, originally released in 2005. First time on vinyl. On, Rideau, made their great leap forward. Released on Häpna, following two albums of pastoral folk meets electronica, Rideau saw the trio of Andreas and Johan Berthling, and Tomas Hallonsten, working with an outside producer, Marcus Schmickler (Pluramon). On Rideau, Tape's music opened out considerably, embracing traditional minimalism, and luscious melodicism. Now, seventeen years later, Rideau has a new home with Morr Music. Rideau sits neatly with Morr Music's catalog yet it feels contemporary, suggesting the creative discoveries made by the trio have ongoing resonance; their elliptical poetry echoes through recent music from the likes of Tara Clerkin Trio, and Tape's sometime collaborators, Tenniscoats. While they had previously recorded their albums in rural Sweden, for Rideau, the trio decamped to Schmickler's Piethopraxis Studio in Cologne. The creative space that Schmickler carved out for the group allowed them to explore this new material to its fullest. You can hear Schmickler's influence at an almost molecular level -- Tape had never sounded quite so graceful and assured with their compositions. Rideau represents a collective exhalation for Tape, with the trio exploring more involved, longer pieces, which situates them in yet broader musical contexts. There are clear connections with the history of minimalism, for example, via the repeating organ phrase of "Sunrefrain", and the insistent piano arpeggio of "A Spire", which builds into a Reich-ian dream song, with sensuous electronics and glinting vibraphone dappling abstract shapes across the song's stretched canvas. Reflecting on Tape's essence, Schmickler isolates their "uncompromised ethos, caring about small details." This echoes most radically through the twilight environment of "Long Lost Engine", which sets the listener adrift on impossibly radiant drones, while a gentle, almost Feldman-esque melody plays out over the song's surface. It's followed by the reissue's extra track, Japanese electronica quartet Minamo's remix of "Roulette", a connection that would lead to a Minamo/Tape collaborative album, Birds Of A Feather (2007). For now, though, here is the gorgeous, penumbral abstraction of Rideau, an album of whispers and clues, quiet moments and grand gestures, reintroduced to a welcoming world. Includes printed inner and download code; edition of 500.
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CD
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HAPNA 052CD
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The new album from alternative music veterans Tape marks their 14th year of activity. It's called Casino and was recorded in the legendary Atlantis studio in Stockholm by engineer Janne Hansson in December 2013. The music of Tape still continues its growth, in its own way, separated from the rest of the world in many ways. This time the emotional depth and interest in details are even stronger and clearer. The album has been mixed by Andreas Werliin and mastered by Mell Dettmer. Swedish trio Tape was set up in 2000 by brothers Andreas and Johan Berthling with Tomas Hallonsten. Taking cues both from pop, experimentalism, and minimalism, their sound, with a mixture of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, has become recognized internationally and is clearly something of its own. Their first album Opera (HAPNA 040CD) was released on the Häpna imprint (which Johan is a co-owner of) in 2002. Working intuitively, all by themselves, they created mini symphonies out of electronic sounds paired with a stunning melodic lyricism. 2003 saw the release of Milieu. These recordings had a more arranged feeling and a clear pop sensibility in some parts. In 2005 they went to Cologne to have Marcus Schmickler produce and record their third album Rideau. This was done in his Piethopraxis studio in Cologne and his involvement left traces; an almost architectonical approach was taken and some of the intimacy that characterized the first two albums was replaced by a somewhat harder edge. In 2006 they collaborated with Japanese duo Tenniscoats on their album Tan-Tan Therapy. That same year they recorded in Tokyo with Japanese quartet Minamo, which resulted in the record Birds of a Feather. Since Luminarium (2008) they have been working out of their own Summa studio in Stockholm and there they also recorded what became Revelationes (HAPNA 044CD), their fifth album. After a hiatus for two years the group did a tour of Europe in November 2013. They tried out new material, which later was recorded in Stockholm at the Atlantis studio and is now released as the album Casino. It's their sixth full-length album if you omit all the different collaborations and other stuff they've done throughout the years (all released on Häpna). Johan Berthling plays guitar and more in Tape but is also the bass player for the trio Fire! with Mats Gustafsson & Andreas Werliin and is involved with many other projects ranging from free-jazz to rock. His collaborators include Oren Ambarchi, Akira Sakata and Paal Nilssen-Love. Tomas Hallonsten is a keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist running the trio Time Is A Mountain, including Berthling on bass and drummer Andreas Werliin. He is a much-in-demand musician and works in many different contexts. Andreas Berthling is a musician using modular synthesis and laptop as his instruments. He has released a string of recordings under his own name.
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LP
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HAPNA 052LP
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LP version with download card.
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CD
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HAPNA 044CD
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This is the eagerly-awaited fifth full-length album from Sweden's Tape. Tape has been around since 2000, making music in between experimentalism, pop and folk. Their first album Opera was released in 2002 by Häpna and in 2003 they did their first Japanese tour. Since then, they have toured the U.S., many European countries, China, Japan and Taiwan. They've toured together with people like Bill Wells, David Grubbs, Tenniscoats, Ass, Efterklang, and many others. This is Revelationes: Register. A. Obstinate. Pyramid-shaped body. A scent of camphor around him. Prefers mashed food to firmer consistencies. Thrives in the evenings. B. Past occupation as deckhand. Odd first look. Rests during daytime if given the opportunity. Kind but has high demands concerning one's friendship even in, to him, less flattering circumstances. C. Tubby and lively, gleeful -- but with sad false bottoms. Carries untreated ballast that rolls when the light is put out, screamed wildly in sleep once. Unexplainable interest in fruit cultivation. Applied working method. Information is written to the environment. Stimuli, atmosphere, delicate movements. A few channels are recorded, these trigger reactions, semi-automatic overdubs, complementary actions from others. Carried-out work seems to define new building structures. Instincts, learned patterns and responses, spontaneous additions and supplements. Two chords are played, then two again, four, they are lust-permuted, four, a metal whistle, a faint howl is cut in, the elements are permuted, permuted, lust-permuted.
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LP
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IMMUNE 015LP
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"Revelationes is the 5th studio album from Tape, their first since 2008's Luminarium and the follow-up to their collaboration LP with Bill Wells (Fugue, Immune 008, 2010). The LP is co-released with Häpna in an edition of 1,000 copies worldwide and pressed on high-quality virgin vinyl at RTI with free MP3 download coupon. (CD version also available on Häpna). Tape have been playing their unique blend of pop, experimentalism, and minimalism since 2000; having released four full-length albums and collaborative recordings with Tenniscoats, Bill Wells, and Minamo."
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CD
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HAPNA 041CD
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Milieu Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2003 second full-length, Milieu (HAPNA 014CD), with four new tracks taken from the original 2003 sessions. When this album first came out, it sounded like nothing else. Seemingly improvised but still so tenderly composed, it took cues from both the most gentle free jazz and Brian Eno's ideas of ambient music, but at the same time leaning against both Swedish folk music and broken pop balladry. Milieu -- together with its forerunner Opera -- became something of a stepping stone for, if not a new kind of pop, at least a new way of approaching it and a new way of seeing what it could achieve. Tape had very little to do with traditional experimental music, they never fitted into jazz and -- although many tried to -- their beautiful songs could not by any means be labelled electronica. Instead it was the genuine gentleness itself of Tape's music that spoke to their soul mates across the world. Milieu opened a door to a musical heart their contemporaries had been trying to reach for a long time. As Andres Lokko describes of this release, "Tape stir up such forgotten feelings, they restore fading pictures we don't really want to share with anyone else. Or in some cases have forgotten they were ever there in the first place. The aching slowness of these melodies awaken reluctant nostalgia; a forced sentimentality. And they do so without the aid of words, only with the purest music; the electricity in the air that surrounds the captured moment." Now in a digipak with new cover art.
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CD
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HAPNA 040CD
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Opera Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2002 full-length debut Opera (HAPNA 009CD), with three new tracks taken from the original 2002 sessions. Tape are Johan Berthling, Andreas Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten: guitars, laptop, pedals, synthesizers, harmonium, melodica, field recordings, percussion, harmonica, zither, piano, flute, bells, glockenspiel, accordion, trumpet, paper, styrofoam, yongmei. As Stephan Mathieu wrote at the time of this release, "Tape's music lives at the intersection of a 21st century chamber music and an imaginary folklore. Slowly passing by vast yellow rape fields and ancient, abandoned factories, the music on my headphones seems to fit almost too perfectly. The sun and nature are certainly core ingredients of Opera and its slowly floating melodies carry the spirit of travel, not on an aircraft, but submerged in a landscape instead." In the meantime, Tape have distilled their sound with their albums such as Milieu, Rideau, as well as collaborations with Tenniscoats more and more into an organic song-like format. While all of them are excellent, Tape's essence can be found in Opera. Listening to Opera again after almost six years, it proves to be a truly great and timeless album. Now in a digipak with new cover art.
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CD
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HAPNA 014CD
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[deleted version, replaced by Hapna 041CD]. "Tape is a trio from Stockholm, Sweden, building their music from a whole array of acoustic instruments, computer and field recordings. Their first CD Opera got excellent reviews in international press and was compared to artists such as Talk Talk, Gastr del Sol, Fennesz, John Fahey and Faust. Their new CD Milieu shares the same basic premises as Opera. All kinds of sound sources are used and organically integrated in the songs, which move freely somewhere between the composed and the improvised. Even if Milieu makes use of experimental methods, the album is argumentatively more song-based than Opera and therefore maybe more accessible."
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CD
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HAPNA 009CD
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[replaced by HAPNA 040CD] Andreas Berthling/Johan Berthling/Tomas Hallonsten: guitars, laptop, pedals, synthesizers, harmonium, melodica, field recordings, percussion, harmonica, zither, piano, flute, bells, glockenspiel, accordion, trumpet, paper, styrofoam, yongmei. "If you listen carefully to Tape's autumnal blend of plucked guitars, skittish electronics, and warm organic sound, you can actually see the landscapes these pieces seem destined to score. The music made by this trio -- which comprises Andreas and Johan Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten -- is entirely instrumental and abstract, and yet its gentle rolling sound fields seem to encompass very concrete places and times. Resisting the powerful temptation to clutter up their songs with electronic debris, the trio uses laptop effects and glitchy splatter as accents, one more falling leaf in the dry rustle of pre-winter preparations. Opera is dominated by acoustic guitar, with simple Fahey-esque lines weaving their way through a tight winding path, surrounded on all sides by pulsating harmonium drones, horns, electronics, and hiss-filled field recordings. Tape's approach to making music is all too rare these days, as they comfortably -- and seemingly effortlessly -- straddle the barbed fence between the accessible and the avant-garde. Opera's multi-layered sonic collages are forged from the absolute cutting edge of electro-acoustic music, at times calling to mind the rattle-and-drone of the Erstwhile catalogue or the chiming laptop compositions of Kim Hiorthoy. And yet Tape is also entirely their own entity, drawing inspiration and techniques from all quarters and blending them into a melodic, accessible, mellow sound that's all them. That this album can be so lovely and seductive and charming on its surface is one thing; that it can be all that and still reveal such depth and complexity going on underneath is another, and that's what makes it so worthwhile." -- Ed Howard.
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