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 kent tankred 		there are 6 titles featuring tape in stock.
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$17.46

back in stock as of
july 21st, 2008

first in stock on
june 4th, 2008

threads:
modern-psych
guitar-themed
folk
digital-musics
field-recordings

häpna (sweden) #h.42 cd

tape “luminarium” compact disc

  • beams
  • moth wings
  • fingers
  • reperto
  • mystery mutiny
  • dripstone
  • altamira
  • parade
  • illuminations
  • beams out
click the play button to hear an excerpt of "moth wings"
may 2008 release ; the new (not a reissue !!!) fourth album by swedish trio tape ...
häpna press release...
tape
“luminarum”
häpna h.42, cd
10 tracks, 42 minutes
release date: may 7, 2008

"dreaming the same dreams, not knowing of each other. invoking old times at new places, side by side, not knowing of each other. longing for yearning; light of dawn and midday sun. a world which lets itself be sensed, not known; the first light of your rosy-fingered youth; birches and concrete, touch and go. the new album by swedish group tape is a luminarium of sound where past and present merge at the speed of light."tape is the trio of andreas berthling, johan berthling and tomas hallonsten from stockholm, sweden. this is their fourth album and it was recorded in their summa studio in stockholm.

bio:
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 has become recognized internationally and is clearly something of its own. their first album opera was released on the häpna imprint (which johan is a co-owner of) in 2002. working intuitive, all by themselves, they created mini symphonies out of electronic sounds paired with a stunning melodic lyricism. with an array of electronic and acoustic instruments at hand they recorded at a small stone barn on the island of öland, east of sweden. 2003 saw the release of milieu, recorded at the very same barn. 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 were replaced by a harder edge.

in 2006 they collaborated with japanese duo tenniscoats on their album tan–tan therapy (häpna 2007). the same year they recorded in tokyo with japanese quartet minamo, which resulted in the record birds of a feather (headz 2007).

in the years, their touring has taken them to places like japan, taiwan, usa and most parts of europe.

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$17.46

new to stock as of
june 4th, 2008

threads:
modern-psych
folk
guitar-themed
digital-musics
field-recordings

häpna (sweden) #h.41 cd

tape “milieu plus” compact disc

  • oak player
  • sponge chorus
  • star skid
  • crippled tree
  • augustan chateau
  • edisto
  • spruce horns
  • golden twig
  • rocked root
  • long bell
  • root tattoo
  • switchboard fog
click the play button to hear an excerpt of "augustan chateau"
may 2008 release ; a new, digipak version (with four era-accurate bonus cuts) of the second tape album ...
häpna press release...
tape
“milieu plus”

häpna h.41, cd
12 tracks, 52 minutes
release date: april 16, 2008

when milieu, the sophomore album by stockholm based trio tape, first came out at the tail end of 2003, 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. in the end tape created something entirely unique.

for quite some time it felt like they – brothers andreas and johan berthling and tomas hallonsten – were on their own, whether anyone bothered to listen or not they’d still be walking deeper and deeper down their own musical path, into a very private forest of their collective heart and mind.

slowly, almost as pacelessly as the music itself, they started making friends. and in the process they sold out all copies of the record. that is why milieu is finally being reissued and restored in this expanded format.

while doing so milieu – together with its forerunner opera – became something of a stepping stone - some of us would argue it was the blue print – for, if not a new pop the at least a new way of approaching it and a new way of 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. tape now presented them with the key.

at least that’s what it felt like for me.

wherever i went the following year i seemed to make friends through milieu. in berlin, in glasgow, in tokyo. in a book store in chicago, at a tiny concert with tenniscoats, maher shalal hash baz and the pianist bill wells among the dragon flies in the southeast of japan and in an empty scottish vegetarian café – the love we felt for tapes music brought us together. we’re all still very close.

i guess what makes tape’s music so special is that it plays just like short stories. the trail of thoughts i want to a great short story to start in my head and heart. where the sentences, the dialogue, are just a blank canvas for the reader to project her own loves and regrets on. and in music there’s no need for translation.

the sound of milieu remind me of the books of tove jansson, the finnish writer of the beautiful stories from the moominvalley (especially the masterful moominpappa at sea and moominvalley in november). i’m never sure if they’re really about childhood summers and winters long gone, the ones that i somewhere deep inside just know never really were as good as they seem when i try to remember them.

or if they’re about me now, all grown up and pushing 40.

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.

– andres lokko, london w11, january 2008

milieu plus is a reissue of milieu (häpna h.14), with four new tracks taken from the original 2003 sessions. now in digipak with new cover art.

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$17.46

back in stock as of
august 22nd, 2008

first in stock on
june 4th, 2008

threads:
modern-psych
folk
guitar-themed
digital-musics
field-recordings

häpna (sweden) #h.40 cd

tape “opera plus” compact disc

  • bell mountain
  • fire made of bones
  • leafed hands
  • feeler
  • summa
  • cookie drum (reads too much)
  • radiolaria
  • longitude
  • noises from a hill
  • return to ship
  • terraces
  • chord mountain
  • rut
click the play button to hear an excerpt of "leafed hands"
may 2008 release ; a new, digipak version (with three era-accurate bonus cuts) of this excellent meeting of pop-folk-psych stylings and more contemporary digital-music-lineage abstraction ... one of the few records from the just post millenial age that has stood the test of time (only 5 years, but even still ...)
häpna press release...
tape
“opera plus”

häpna h.40, cd
13 tracks, 60 minutes
release date: april 16, 2008

it was in april 2003 when i met tape’s johan berthling and häpna co-founder klas augustsson in stockholm for the first time. they handed me a proper pile of cds, and to me it was love at first sight. i was truly intrigued by häpna’s colourful blend of different releases covering a spectrum from sound art, field recordings, improv, minimalism, folk and ( – for lack of any better words to describe sheriff's outerworldly music – ) chamber rock. and there was opera, the debut by tape, which managed to sum up the labels brilliant catalogue.

a week after this meeting i wrote in a review –

”using a wide array of instruments like guitar, harmonium, melodica, field recordings, percussion, computer, harmonica, zither, piano, accordion, soprano sax and trumpet, tape's music lives at the intersection of a 21st century chamber music and an imaginary folklore. i write this on a train from weimar to berlin (the distance to my girls at home is growing bigger and this always makes me feel a little melancholic), riding through the marvellous green and sun-flooded mark-brandenburg countryside. 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 following albums milieu, rideau and the most recent collaboration 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 proofs to be a truly great and timeless album.

– stephan mathieu, january 2008

opera plus is a reissue of opera (häpna h.9), with three new tracks taken from the original 2002 sessions. now in digipak with new cover art.

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$15.71

back in stock as of
june 4th, 2008

first in stock on
december 6th, 2007

threads:
modern-psych
folk

häpna (sweden) #h.37 cd

tenniscoats “tan-tan therapy” compact disc

  • baibaba bimba
  • oetsu to kanki no nanoriuta (given song by sob and joy)
  • marui hito (everyone)
  • one swan swim
  • umbarepa!
  • abi and travel
  • rolling train
  • uta ga nainoni (like no songs)
häpna press release...
tenniscoats
“tan-tan therapy”

häpna h.37, cd
8 tracks, 39 minutes
release date: november 7, 2007 (world, excluding japan)

to live music. it’s an expression one probably has heard some time, but never has it been more appropriate than to describe the lives of married couple saya and takashi ueno, also known as tenniscoats. we in tape have known them for almost two years now, and we have time and time again been astonished by how many hours they spend on music in a day. new songs are written in the tour bus, new songs are rehearsed for the evening’s concert at the soundcheck and later, after the concert, they literally play and sing themselves to sleep. they catch some sleep here and there, and wake up to musical work again with coffee and cigarettes as the only fuel... a wild pace and a flow of musical expressions that have been tremendously inspiring to take part of.

their starting point is pop songs, but with a staggeringly free approach: psychedelic folk tunes, complex instrumentals and short pop jewels side by side, everything is possible. a song can be performed in a myriad ways. their interplay is angular and at the same time the most sensitive one has heard. a feeling of a music that constantly goes on, whether saya and ueno are on stage or not. a music free of pretensions, but urgent as few things i have heard.

- johan berthling, tape

tan-tan therapy is a distillate of the last two years, when tenniscoats and tape have socialised, toured together and exchanged musical ideas and experiences. the album gives a slightly new picture of tenniscoats. found here is a fuller dynamic spectra and richer use of diverse sound elements than usually found in their live shows. yet the album has a concise pop feeling to it, in a calm and multi-faceted way. the level of details and the different sound world is to a large extent due to the musicians of tape, as they have been involved both in the production and the writing of arrangements on the record. to tenniscoats’ original setting, various horn instruments, double bass, zither, organ, glockenspiel and electronic instruments have been added. the recordings were made in an intuitive way during a couple of days in stockholm and cologne with tape (andreas berthling, johan berthling, tomas hallonsten), andreas söderström (ass), leo svensson and lars skoglund and fellow musicians.

saya and ueno are also members of the japanese music collective maher shalal hash baz. they live outside of tokyo.

personnel:
saya: vocals, piano, choir, glockenspiel, synthesizer, pianet
takashi ueno: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, alto saxophone, choir, whistling
johan berthling: bass, zither, choir, whistling, bells
tomas hallonsten: harmonica, pocket trumpet, hammond organ, synthesizer, glockenspiel, accordion, e flat horn, snare drum, bells
andreas berthling: electronics, field recordings, choir, whistling
andreas söderström: acoustic guitar, breathing, trumpet, lapsteel, hand drum, choir, whistling
lars skoglund: drums, bells, choir, whistling
leo svensson: cello

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$15.71

back in stock as of
june 4th, 2008

first in stock on
october 4th, 2006

häpna (sweden) #h.25 cd

tape “rideau” compact disc

  • sunrefrain
  • a spire
  • sand dunes
  • exuma
  • long lost engine
click the play button to hear an excerpt of "a spire"
häpna press release...
on october the 24th the swedish trio tape will release their eagerly awaited third album – “rideau”. the main idea behind this record was to make something that differed from the two previous albums that were recorded by the group members themselves, and also to try to work with another person to push the music in another direction. the choice fell on marcus schmickler, german musician and producer and the album was recorded in his studio in cologne, winter/spring 2004-2005. another way of working had to be found and the concentrated atmosphere that was established was soon transferred to the recordings. the surroundings of cologne made for sure an imprint as the previous albums were recorded in rural sweden. the songs have a more architectural structure this time, a sharper sound, more rhythmical elements and a grandeur that hasn’t shown before.

tape’s music moves between experimental music and pop without effort and has been recognized internationally for it’s particular sound where electronics blend with all sorts of acoustic and electric instruments.

tape was formed in 2000 by brothers andreas and johan berthling together with tomas hallonsten. their first recording opera came out in 2002, the second milieu in 2003, both released on häpna. tape has done shorter tours in europe, the us and japan. in august 2005 staalplaat released a live cd of tape in their “mort aux vaches” series.

marcus schmickler is a musician, producer and composer with a broad range. he makes pop with pluramon (with julee cruise), experimental computer music solo, and composes contemporary music for choir.

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$35.37

new to stock as of
april 21st, 2008

threads:
modern-psych
digital-musics
folk

minority (czech republic) #min 21 lp

tape “milieu plus” double long playing record set

  • oak player
  • sponge chorus
  • star skid

  • crippled tree
  • augustan chateau
  • edisto

  • spruce horns
  • golden twig
  • rocked root

  • long bell
  • root tattoo
  • switchboard fog
click the play button to hear an excerpt of "sponge chorus"
april 2008 release ; an extremely well-done czech reissue of tape’s “breakthrough” album as a double yellow-vinyl lp in a full gatefold sleeve ...

ps ; yes, i know it’s expensive; international customers please keep in mind that the lion’s share of the cost ... & ultimately the price includes shipping costs from the czech republic to the u.s. - you might be better off finding a copy on the continent ... others ; if you love this music as much as i do you’ll want to discover it here anew (as i’m glad i did) - something of a high-water mark in the digital-era post-rock age ; the berthlings’ impeccable production absolutely sings on vinyl ...
minority press release...

tape - milieu plus 2lp

line-up:

andreas berthling / johan berthling / tomas hallonsten

banjo, violin, guitar, synthesizer, computer, organ, harmonium, accordion, harmonica, trumpet, field recordings, percussion, concrete sounds, vibraphone, glockenspiel, chinese flute, alto recorder, piano, melodica

guests:
magnus granberg - alt saxophone (4,7)
staffan johansson - lapsteel guitar (2,8)

played, recorded and mixed by tape at öland and in stockholm summer & autumn of 2003.
mastered by henrik jonsson at polar studios and masters of audio.
cover by klas augustsson. photos by ann sofie börjesson.

limited edition of 500 handnumbered copies on clear yellow vinyl.

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 kent tankred 		...and that's everything in stock featuring tape.
(why not take a look at the previous and next artists?)		next artist:
 tarab 
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