TAPETE RECORDS - Forced Exposure

$22.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 2/28/2020

LP version. Nine months since the release of 6 Lenins (TR 432CD/LP, 2019), The Proper Ornaments are back with Mission Bells, a somber but uplifting record that began its life while they were on tour earlier in 2019, when new ideas emerged in different soundchecks around Europe. James Hoare, Bobby Syme, and Max Oscarnold, the founders of the group, recruited Nathalie Bruno as a bassist for the tour, and then the four-piece began recording in the summer at Hoare's home studio in Finsbury Park, London, using the same 16-track Studer tape machine as on their previous record, but this time they incorporated a Moog sequencer and other electronics instruments. On these recordings, meticulous attention to detail is never deployed as an end in itself but always with the song and sound in mind. As the Mission Bells sing, echoes of black albums Velvets, Swell Maps, Spiritualized, and Cluster might reach inside your brain, but the truth is that it's hard to pinpoint influences on an album that is the fifth in the life of this band, as they have been becoming more and more themselves, not needing to look elsewhere for inspiration. This is not a retro band, they just happened to like playing guitar, a preference that began, at least for James Hoare and Max Oscarnold, when they were nine years old. Whoever is familiar with their previous records might agree that Mission Bells has a lot of the innocent elements (drum machines underneath simple songs) of their first record, Waiting For The Summer (2013), the melancholy of Foxhole (2017), and their heavy live sounds, as drummer Bobby Syme points out. But it's the lyrical maturity that is the real achievement on this record. The words can be read as a William Burroughs cut-up experiment on what it is to live in these dystopian times. Mission Bells is a majestic achievement, a musical maelstrom, its harmonies drawing the inclined listener into an irreversible somnambulant state, caught between dreamland and waking hours. The beauty of it is, you won't want to escape, even though the door is flung open as your postmodern life awaits you outside...

$17.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 2/28/2020

Nine months since the release of 6 Lenins (TR 432CD/LP, 2019), The Proper Ornaments are back with Mission Bells, a somber but uplifting record that began its life while they were on tour earlier in 2019, when new ideas emerged in different soundchecks around Europe. James Hoare, Bobby Syme, and Max Oscarnold, the founders of the group, recruited Nathalie Bruno as a bassist for the tour, and then the four-piece began recording in the summer at Hoare's home studio in Finsbury Park, London, using the same 16-track Studer tape machine as on their previous record, but this time they incorporated a Moog sequencer and other electronics instruments. On these recordings, meticulous attention to detail is never deployed as an end in itself but always with the song and sound in mind. As the Mission Bells sing, echoes of black albums Velvets, Swell Maps, Spiritualized, and Cluster might reach inside your brain, but the truth is that it's hard to pinpoint influences on an album that is the fifth in the life of this band, as they have been becoming more and more themselves, not needing to look elsewhere for inspiration. This is not a retro band, they just happened to like playing guitar, a preference that began, at least for James Hoare and Max Oscarnold, when they were nine years old. Whoever is familiar with their previous records might agree that Mission Bells has a lot of the innocent elements (drum machines underneath simple songs) of their first record, Waiting For The Summer (2013), the melancholy of Foxhole (2017), and their heavy live sounds, as drummer Bobby Syme points out. But it's the lyrical maturity that is the real achievement on this record. The words can be read as a William Burroughs cut-up experiment on what it is to live in these dystopian times. Mission Bells is a majestic achievement, a musical maelstrom, its harmonies drawing the inclined listener into an irreversible somnambulant state, caught between dreamland and waking hours. The beauty of it is, you won't want to escape, even though the door is flung open as your postmodern life awaits you outside...

$17.00 NOT IN STOCK

Here comes the beat of the broken street... "Fireraisers" as in those with flames in veins -- had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and religious/political hypocrisy --the inexorable rise of the moron mind and those sleepwalking in their lazy hives letting THEM do this to US... a modern rite to burn away all this to the ground and see what nice flowers rise up from the ground... we imagine an army of disenchanted, beaten down kids becoming modern anarchist magicians drawing dumb sgylls of dada retribution ... "if we all spit together we can drown the bastards".

The last LP was a gentler, inner, melancholic hug at 2am and perhaps we would've continued to go down a sweeter road but the state of the world has meant Comet Gain were compelled to turn the fuzz up and make something more brutal and instant. In defiance to their last LP -- now its late-night sadness turns to the angry morning. First take beats ethics. Two weeks of late afternoon 45s listening parties with The Rationals/Nerves/Messthetics/Back From The Grave garage/Fading Yellow comps/The Jam/Dead Moon --whatever had the urge. Trying to figure out how Rufus Thomas would sound if he joined the Swell Maps... condensing it all mixing and absorbing then forgetting it all and propelling the psychic mix tape into an albums worth of angry pop drops and slow howls. Recorded in a living room in North London with James Hoare (The Proper Ornaments, Ultimate Painting) with the help of Joseph Harvey-Whyte (Hanging Stars) pedal steeliest. Then turned into the record it is by drummer/producer M.J. Taylor who also produced Comet Gain's LP Realistes -- the closest cousin to this one... songs about the evil greedy mirage of world religion, Victor Jara and those poets and teachers killed for believing in love and words, about the forgotten who are blamed for everything and can't rise up from their knees to fight back, about the high street Kali-Yuga, occult terrorists with low IQ but high ESP, about the Godfrey Brothers, about Lou Reed's mourning dog on a road trip trying to bury his masters mullet somewhere in the desert, about those stuck in the glory days of their past myopic of the present and all the other usual losers and romantics the band always bang on about -- with added melody and stomp... giving no real answers but pointing fingers and prodding you in the back... in defiance of just staying silent and letting the morons win. So Comet Gain is still alive longer than we should --still trying to be a collective and an idea emerging every now and then with the same grumpy erratic sounds -- this one's louder than the last one but sometimes maybe quieter. And it's filled with love and rage. And it's about 40 minutes long which is always a good thing.

$15.50 IN STOCK

At the end of the '70s, The Monochrome Set were part of the first wave of "post punk" bands. Right from the beginning, the band earned a solid reputation as purveyors of fine pop, gaining praise from '80s contemporaries such as Morrissey and Edwyn Collins. Importantly, in later years this praise has continued with artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The Divine Comedy, and Graham Coxon, all citing the band as a key influence on their own work. The Monochrome Set sound has often been described as "timeless", and that alone explains why, over the years, the band has continued gaining admirers. Fabula Mendax is based on manuscripts written in the 15th Century by Armande de Pange, a companion of Jehanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc). Follow Armande as she flees her unhinged family, only to be caught up in the chaos of The Hundred Years' War. She encounters and trails the enigmatic Joan, later becoming a part of her expanding group of followers. As they travel west into the war zone of Northern France, they meet a motley medley of scheming noblewomen, bellicose knights, nefarious bishops, and assorted rotters, rogues, and renegades. This is The Monochrome Set at its most ornate, and, much like Joan of Arc's ensemble, features a myriad of fiddlers, pluckers, beaters, tinklers, and wailers, surrounding a central core of notorious crackpots. The hauntingly melodic pop harks back to the early TMS period of "Eine Symphonie Des Grauens" (1979), but is now complemented by a (periodically unemployed) vampire's orchestra, whose cha-cha-charnel chiming careens into carnal rhyming chanting, while saints and demon's trip lightly across the slick red fields of liberty. As with all TMS albums, Fabula Mendax is at once accessible and arcane, upbeat and dark, lush and spare, and with lyrics that as ever remain tantalizingly opaque.

$22.00 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. Here comes the beat of the broken street... "Fireraisers" as in those with flames in veins -- had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and religious/political hypocrisy --the inexorable rise of the moron mind and those sleepwalking in their lazy hives letting THEM do this to US... a modern rite to burn away all this to the ground and see what nice flowers rise up from the ground... we imagine an army of disenchanted, beaten down kids becoming modern anarchist magicians drawing dumb sgylls of dada retribution ... "if we all spit together we can drown the bastards".

The last LP was a gentler, inner, melancholic hug at 2am and perhaps we would've continued to go down a sweeter road but the state of the world has meant Comet Gain were compelled to turn the fuzz up and make something more brutal and instant. In defiance to their last LP -- now its late-night sadness turns to the angry morning. First take beats ethics. Two weeks of late afternoon 45s listening parties with The Rationals/Nerves/Messthetics/Back From The Grave garage/Fading Yellow comps/The Jam/Dead Moon --whatever had the urge. Trying to figure out how Rufus Thomas would sound if he joined the Swell Maps... condensing it all mixing and absorbing then forgetting it all and propelling the psychic mix tape into an albums worth of angry pop drops and slow howls. Recorded in a living room in North London with James Hoare (The Proper Ornaments, Ultimate Painting) with the help of Joseph Harvey-Whyte (Hanging Stars) pedal steeliest. Then turned into the record it is by drummer/producer M.J. Taylor who also produced Comet Gain's LP Realistes -- the closest cousin to this one... songs about the evil greedy mirage of world religion, Victor Jara and those poets and teachers killed for believing in love and words, about the forgotten who are blamed for everything and can't rise up from their knees to fight back, about the high street Kali-Yuga, occult terrorists with low IQ but high ESP, about the Godfrey Brothers, about Lou Reed's mourning dog on a road trip trying to bury his masters mullet somewhere in the desert, about those stuck in the glory days of their past myopic of the present and all the other usual losers and romantics the band always bang on about -- with added melody and stomp... giving no real answers but pointing fingers and prodding you in the back... in defiance of just staying silent and letting the morons win. So Comet Gain is still alive longer than we should --still trying to be a collective and an idea emerging every now and then with the same grumpy erratic sounds -- this one's louder than the last one but sometimes maybe quieter. And it's filled with love and rage. And it's about 40 minutes long which is always a good thing.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Tapete Records present a reissue of Pete Astor's Paradise, originally released in 1992 on Danceteria. With the onset of the 1990s and the conclusion of The Weather Prophets, Pete Astor was in the mood for some artistic regeneration. To this end, he recruited a new group of musicians and friends, forming The Holy Road. The band consisted of erstwhile Felt and Everything But The Girl guitarist Neil Scott, bassist Chris Clarke (soon to become a key member of both The Rockingbirds and Danny and the Champions of the World), and drummer Russell Lax (of The Oyster Band and Billy Childish's Pop Rivets). While much of the UK was -- in the words of Jarvis Cocker -- "standing in a field, sorted for Es and Whizz," Astor maintained his commitment to his version of an English Chanson tradition. As such, he was adopted by a new French audience, coalescing around the anglophile gospel of the influential magazine Les Inrockuptibles who lionized Astor's work -- whether it be "Why Does The Rain?", courtesy of his first Creation band, The Loft, or The Weather Prophets' demi-anthem "Almost Prayed", or his more recent solo work on "Submarine" and "Zoo". And so arrived Paradise, becoming for many the album in which Astor, along with The Holy Road, most perfectly expressed his indubitable facility as a singer and songwriter. All his enduring musical references -- from classic British guitar pop to New-York punk via the blues and even jazz -- seem to blend into a fully-formed vision, one which envisions a kind of mythic America whilst always cleaving to European, and specifically British, roots. Twenty-seven years later, with Tapete's re-release, Paradise is a vital addition to a body of work which sounds as good now as it did then.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Tapete Records present a reissue of Pete Astor's Paradise, originally released in 1992 on Danceteria. With the onset of the 1990s and the conclusion of The Weather Prophets, Pete Astor was in the mood for some artistic regeneration. To this end, he recruited a new group of musicians and friends, forming The Holy Road. The band consisted of erstwhile Felt and Everything But The Girl guitarist Neil Scott, bassist Chris Clarke (soon to become a key member of both The Rockingbirds and Danny and the Champions of the World), and drummer Russell Lax (of The Oyster Band and Billy Childish's Pop Rivets). While much of the UK was -- in the words of Jarvis Cocker -- "standing in a field, sorted for Es and Whizz," Astor maintained his commitment to his version of an English Chanson tradition. As such, he was adopted by a new French audience, coalescing around the anglophile gospel of the influential magazine Les Inrockuptibles who lionized Astor's work -- whether it be "Why Does The Rain?", courtesy of his first Creation band, The Loft, or The Weather Prophets' demi-anthem "Almost Prayed", or his more recent solo work on "Submarine" and "Zoo". And so arrived Paradise, becoming for many the album in which Astor, along with The Holy Road, most perfectly expressed his indubitable facility as a singer and songwriter. All his enduring musical references -- from classic British guitar pop to New-York punk via the blues and even jazz -- seem to blend into a fully-formed vision, one which envisions a kind of mythic America whilst always cleaving to European, and specifically British, roots. Twenty-seven years later, with Tapete's re-release, Paradise is a vital addition to a body of work which sounds as good now as it did then.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. At the end of the '70s, The Monochrome Set were part of the first wave of "post punk" bands. Right from the beginning, the band earned a solid reputation as purveyors of fine pop, gaining praise from '80s contemporaries such as Morrissey and Edwyn Collins. Importantly, in later years this praise has continued with artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The Divine Comedy, and Graham Coxon, all citing the band as a key influence on their own work. The Monochrome Set sound has often been described as "timeless", and that alone explains why, over the years, the band has continued gaining admirers. Fabula Mendax is based on manuscripts written in the 15th Century by Armande de Pange, a companion of Jehanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc). Follow Armande as she flees her unhinged family, only to be caught up in the chaos of The Hundred Years' War. She encounters and trails the enigmatic Joan, later becoming a part of her expanding group of followers. As they travel west into the war zone of Northern France, they meet a motley medley of scheming noblewomen, bellicose knights, nefarious bishops, and assorted rotters, rogues, and renegades. This is The Monochrome Set at its most ornate, and, much like Joan of Arc's ensemble, features a myriad of fiddlers, pluckers, beaters, tinklers, and wailers, surrounding a central core of notorious crackpots. The hauntingly melodic pop harks back to the early TMS period of "Eine Symphonie Des Grauens" (1979), but is now complemented by a (periodically unemployed) vampire's orchestra, whose cha-cha-charnel chiming careens into carnal rhyming chanting, while saints and demon's trip lightly across the slick red fields of liberty. As with all TMS albums, Fabula Mendax is at once accessible and arcane, upbeat and dark, lush and spare, and with lyrics that as ever remain tantalizingly opaque.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Stereo Total -- Ah! Quel Cinéma! An album title with not one, but two exclamation marks, meaning something akin to "what a palaver" as it primes the listener for songs like "Cinemascope". Themes such as personal injuries ("Ich Bin Cool"), betrayal ("Mes Copines"), personality deficiencies brought on by drug abuse ("Methedrine"), rage ("Hass-Satellit"), inflated opinions of oneself ("Brezel Says"), suicide ("Le Spleen"), grief ("Dancing With A Memory"), and souls in torment ("Elektroschocktherapie") are presented in widescreen format in and often in the most entertaining fashion. Stereo Total's penchant for wordplay is not in evidence in all of the lyrics on this record. Many tracks here echo the rather more somber, desperate songs she wrote for her first band Les Lolitas. Nevertheless, the anarchic humor which can be associated with Stereo Total resurfaces on compositions like "Keine Musik" and "Einfach". Musically, this Stereo Total disc, their twelfth, cannot be readily aligned with anything at all. If earlier albums resonated with influences from chanson, trash, or disco to punk, rock'n'roll and NDW (German New Wave), Stereo Total have now arrived in their very own musical universe which pays no heed to stylistic devices, reminiscent of "rien de tout". Brezel Göring draws on his favored array of instruments more likely to be found in the hands of children in households where a musical education is not on the agenda: plastic baby organ and dreadful mouse piano, accompanied by home-made guitars glued together by less than gifted artisans. Stereo Total continue to make electronic music with flea market Casio sounds which fly in the face of what is generally accepted to be electronic music. Each musical instrument could probably be translated into social coordinates and in this sense, the tools of Stereo Total's trade speak an unequivocal language. Stereo Total continue to play lo-fi garage rock music which makes a mockery of all the masculine clichés associated with guitars. When Françoise Cactus plays the drums, the rhythms of feminism, anti-professionalism and subversive dilettantism come to the fore. Any attempts to pigeonhole Stereo Total. The group began making music before the internet existed, before the Euro, before Germany reunited and before there were even bands or music. They will probably still be playing when all that has been consigned to the dustbin of history. When they began making music together, they made it their mission to disrupt rules, to destabilize ideas. They may not have thrown European harmonic structure or 4/4 time out of the window, but they have certainly asked questions of every other aspect of musical and lyrical techniques.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Stereo Total -- Ah! Quel Cinéma! An album title with not one, but two exclamation marks, meaning something akin to "what a palaver" as it primes the listener for songs like "Cinemascope". Themes such as personal injuries ("Ich Bin Cool"), betrayal ("Mes Copines"), personality deficiencies brought on by drug abuse ("Methedrine"), rage ("Hass-Satellit"), inflated opinions of oneself ("Brezel Says"), suicide ("Le Spleen"), grief ("Dancing With A Memory"), and souls in torment ("Elektroschocktherapie") are presented in widescreen format in and often in the most entertaining fashion. Stereo Total's penchant for wordplay is not in evidence in all of the lyrics on this record. Many tracks here echo the rather more somber, desperate songs she wrote for her first band Les Lolitas. Nevertheless, the anarchic humor which can be associated with Stereo Total resurfaces on compositions like "Keine Musik" and "Einfach". Musically, this Stereo Total disc, their twelfth, cannot be readily aligned with anything at all. If earlier albums resonated with influences from chanson, trash, or disco to punk, rock'n'roll and NDW (German New Wave), Stereo Total have now arrived in their very own musical universe which pays no heed to stylistic devices, reminiscent of "rien de tout". Brezel Göring draws on his favored array of instruments more likely to be found in the hands of children in households where a musical education is not on the agenda: plastic baby organ and dreadful mouse piano, accompanied by home-made guitars glued together by less than gifted artisans. Stereo Total continue to make electronic music with flea market Casio sounds which fly in the face of what is generally accepted to be electronic music. Each musical instrument could probably be translated into social coordinates and in this sense, the tools of Stereo Total's trade speak an unequivocal language. Stereo Total continue to play lo-fi garage rock music which makes a mockery of all the masculine clichés associated with guitars. When Françoise Cactus plays the drums, the rhythms of feminism, anti-professionalism and subversive dilettantism come to the fore. Any attempts to pigeonhole Stereo Total. The group began making music before the internet existed, before the Euro, before Germany reunited and before there were even bands or music. They will probably still be playing when all that has been consigned to the dustbin of history. When they began making music together, they made it their mission to disrupt rules, to destabilize ideas. They may not have thrown European harmonic structure or 4/4 time out of the window, but they have certainly asked questions of every other aspect of musical and lyrical techniques.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Andreas Dorau's love affair with pop music blossomed early. Long before he had his first top ten hit at the tender age of sixteen, before he became one of a select few German artists to sign to Mute Records and before he hit the French charts with "Girls In Love", little Andreas retreated to his bedroom with a handful of singles -- Sparks, T-Rex, Beatles, Tina Charles, or whoever else was hot in his childhood years -- and listened to these discs over and over again. There he sat, enthralled by the sounds coming out of his Dual-1224 record player. Yet, however much he loved "Sugar Baby Love", "Yellow Submarine", and "Hot Love", the youthful, slightly eccentric (even then) Dorau could not help thinking why didn't they get straight to the point? Why not skip "In the town where I was born ..." for example and launch straight into "We all live in a yellow submarine"? Nice and simple, short and sweet. If music were a sandwich, Dorau would toss the bread and just eat the filling. To the detriment of the fragile vinyl, not to mention the displeasure of his sister (they were her records, after all), he would lift the needle and drop it onto his favored grooves (the chorus). To this day, Andreas Dorau's aversion to verses is as strong as ever. Should one point out to him that his own albums actually contain more than a few verses, the artist is wont to reply: "The record company made me!" The sheer nerve of it! Fortunately, he has now arrived at Tapete Records, a label renowned for giving free rein to libertine spirits. The songs on Das Wesentliche feel all the more opulent for having left so much out. And they are wonderfully brief -- a brilliant move in this internet age of shrinking attention spans. It is a stroke of genius to remove anything and everything which may run the risk of being boring or annoying. Andreas Dorau produced Das Wesentliche together with top producer Zwanie Jonson. Bubblegum, dance, HI-NRG, leftfield electronica, junk shop glam, and yacht rock are all signposted along the way. Dorau is supported by friends like the Marinas, Carsten Erobique Meyer, and Gunther Buskies in his daring endeavors to strip away unnecessary ballast from the music. May his confrères follow his visionary example in the future.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "A balmy autumn evening in London: I'm nestled in the crowd of a sold-out show at The Lexington to witness one of Louis Philippe's rare performances. The opening act, Friedrich Sunlight, hits the stage. Right from the first notes of the opening song, I listen spellbound. Catchy 'Ba-ba-bas' and unbelievable arrangements pull me and the others closer to the front: Who is that? I'm amazed but yet, can't understand a single word being sung: The singer, gifted with a soft, distinctive voice, sings everything in German. Later in the evening, I bump into him again. He's involved in a lively conversation with a distinguished gentleman. I step in, we introduce each other: His name is Kenji and he is telling Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens the story of his life, how he, a child of Japanese immigrants, moved from San Francisco to Germany. And finally, how he ended up in Augsburg to join like-minded musicians to make music influenced by sunshine pop of the '60s and British pop of the early '80s under the name Friedrich Sunlight . . . The following summer, I'm standing on the concrete roof of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. It's already early evening, but it's still brutally hot, and much to my surprise, I see Kenji again: Friedrich Sunlight is the opening act for The Zombies, which somehow suits the motto of this evening's event: "Goodbye UK -- and Thank You for the Music". After their two intoxicating performances, I get the chance to meet the other band members -- pianist Bernd, guitarist Florian, bassist Thomas, and drummer Marc. We talk about the recordings for their second album and about the new songs, including the Northern Soul-tinged 'Sag Es Erst Morgen', likely the first single, and 'Kleines Haus', a tune reminiscent of The Velvet Underground and a cheerfully sharp reckoning with Donald Trump . . . Months later I hear from Friedrich Sunlight, along with some sad news they send me an advance copy of their album: The energetic, string-laden opener 'Sag Es Erst Morgen' kicks off the LP of the same name, as well as eleven other highlights of contemporary pop music. The album, masterfully mixed in London by a friend of the band, Ian Button, immediately seems airier, pleasantly more accessible and more varied than the first album. Sunshine pop numbers ('Mit Dir') are followed by bossa nova-like pieces ('Fernweh') and '60s persiflages ('Radical And Chic'). The endless search for harmony, the polyphonic vocal arrangements and the band's very own lyrical world harken back to their debut. But whoever hasn't lifted off the ground by now, just listen to those horns on the second track: 'Was Will Man Noch Mehr'..." --Rikard Gustavson

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Andreas Dorau's love affair with pop music blossomed early. Long before he had his first top ten hit at the tender age of sixteen, before he became one of a select few German artists to sign to Mute Records and before he hit the French charts with "Girls In Love", little Andreas retreated to his bedroom with a handful of singles -- Sparks, T-Rex, Beatles, Tina Charles, or whoever else was hot in his childhood years -- and listened to these discs over and over again. There he sat, enthralled by the sounds coming out of his Dual-1224 record player. Yet, however much he loved "Sugar Baby Love", "Yellow Submarine", and "Hot Love", the youthful, slightly eccentric (even then) Dorau could not help thinking why didn't they get straight to the point? Why not skip "In the town where I was born ..." for example and launch straight into "We all live in a yellow submarine"? Nice and simple, short and sweet. If music were a sandwich, Dorau would toss the bread and just eat the filling. To the detriment of the fragile vinyl, not to mention the displeasure of his sister (they were her records, after all), he would lift the needle and drop it onto his favored grooves (the chorus). To this day, Andreas Dorau's aversion to verses is as strong as ever. Should one point out to him that his own albums actually contain more than a few verses, the artist is wont to reply: "The record company made me!" The sheer nerve of it! Fortunately, he has now arrived at Tapete Records, a label renowned for giving free rein to libertine spirits. The songs on Das Wesentliche feel all the more opulent for having left so much out. And they are wonderfully brief -- a brilliant move in this internet age of shrinking attention spans. It is a stroke of genius to remove anything and everything which may run the risk of being boring or annoying. Andreas Dorau produced Das Wesentliche together with top producer Zwanie Jonson. Bubblegum, dance, HI-NRG, leftfield electronica, junk shop glam, and yacht rock are all signposted along the way. Dorau is supported by friends like the Marinas, Carsten Erobique Meyer, and Gunther Buskies in his daring endeavors to strip away unnecessary ballast from the music. May his confrères follow his visionary example in the future.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Tapete present a reissue of Nick Garrie's The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas, originally released in 1968. The Englishman recorded his folk-pop masterpiece in France at the tender age of nineteen. The year was 1968 and Garrie felt ill at ease with the lavish arrangements accompanying his songs. Worse still, the label owner committed suicide and the record virtually disappeared without trace -- until it resurfaced in 2005. Tapete's release includes numerous bonus tracks, rare photograph, and extensive liner notes.

"... The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas feels unmistakably English, and yet never ventures near the childlike tropes of British psychedelia, never hints at prog or flirts with the pastoral folk stylings coming out of the UK in the late 1960s. One very good reason for this oddness is that this album in fact came out of Paris as the result of one heroic act of cross-Channel cultural misunderstanding . . . the story of his debut LP sounds eerily poignant in today's age of European turmoil. It is the tale of a boy who grew up on both sides of the Channel, forever too French for Britain and too British for France, with roots that went back a lot farther still . . . His father's idée fixe meant that come his 18th birthday young Nick found himself in line for two years' service in the French army. Ten years prior to that, the British side of his upbringing had condemned him to the trauma of a Norwich boarding school . . . In his youth, Garrie's 'gods' were Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens and Georges Moustaki. No wonder The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas sounds and feels a lot more like the Tuileries than Hyde Park, more French Riviéra than Brighton pier. In fact the beaches of Saint Tropez were the place where these songs first found an audience when a still teenage Nick Garrie lived precariously on the run from the French army. Having produced some demos in Brussels (included in this collection, alongside a non-album single and one later demo) and renounced his French citizenship, Garrie passed an audition with Lucien Morisse, boss at the then predominant Parisian record label Disc'AZ . . . None other than the eminent Eddie Vartan was employed to give the young Englishman's songs a full orchestral makeover. Having finished his recordings with some 50-odd grumpy French studio hacks in just two weeks, Garrie eagerly awaited the album's release. But on the day before Stanislas was due to appear the news broke that Lucien Morisse had committed suicide. The unexpected death of the man who had signed him also meant the death knell for Garrie's record..." --Robert Rotifer

$17.00 IN STOCK

Tapete Records present a remastered reissue of Robert Forster's album The Evangelist, originally released in 2008. Following the 1989 break-up of the Go-Betweens, the band he had formed at college in 1978 with his friend Grant McLennan, Robert Forster embarked on a solo career, releasing four albums under his own name between 1990 and 1996. In 2000, the Go-Betweens reunited and went on to record three albums. Forster and McLennan began working on the tenth Go-Betweens album and had started writing eight songs together. McLennan died of a heart attack in May 2006, and Forster began work on completing three of the songs they had started writing together, all of which are featured on The Evangelist. CD version comes in a digipak and includes a booklet.

$17.00 IN STOCK

"A balmy autumn evening in London: I'm nestled in the crowd of a sold-out show at The Lexington to witness one of Louis Philippe's rare performances. The opening act, Friedrich Sunlight, hits the stage. Right from the first notes of the opening song, I listen spellbound. Catchy 'Ba-ba-bas' and unbelievable arrangements pull me and the others closer to the front: Who is that? I'm amazed but yet, can't understand a single word being sung: The singer, gifted with a soft, distinctive voice, sings everything in German. Later in the evening, I bump into him again. He's involved in a lively conversation with a distinguished gentleman. I step in, we introduce each other: His name is Kenji and he is telling Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens the story of his life, how he, a child of Japanese immigrants, moved from San Francisco to Germany. And finally, how he ended up in Augsburg to join like-minded musicians to make music influenced by sunshine pop of the '60s and British pop of the early '80s under the name Friedrich Sunlight . . . The following summer, I'm standing on the concrete roof of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. It's already early evening, but it's still brutally hot, and much to my surprise, I see Kenji again: Friedrich Sunlight is the opening act for The Zombies, which somehow suits the motto of this evening's event: "Goodbye UK -- and Thank You for the Music". After their two intoxicating performances, I get the chance to meet the other band members -- pianist Bernd, guitarist Florian, bassist Thomas, and drummer Marc. We talk about the recordings for their second album and about the new songs, including the Northern Soul-tinged 'Sag Es Erst Morgen', likely the first single, and 'Kleines Haus', a tune reminiscent of The Velvet Underground and a cheerfully sharp reckoning with Donald Trump . . . Months later I hear from Friedrich Sunlight, along with some sad news they send me an advance copy of their album: The energetic, string-laden opener 'Sag Es Erst Morgen' kicks off the LP of the same name, as well as eleven other highlights of contemporary pop music. The album, masterfully mixed in London by a friend of the band, Ian Button, immediately seems airier, pleasantly more accessible and more varied than the first album. Sunshine pop numbers ('Mit Dir') are followed by bossa nova-like pieces ('Fernweh') and '60s persiflages ('Radical And Chic'). The endless search for harmony, the polyphonic vocal arrangements and the band's very own lyrical world harken back to their debut. But whoever hasn't lifted off the ground by now, just listen to those horns on the second track: 'Was Will Man Noch Mehr'..." --Rikard Gustavson

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Double LP version. Tapete present a reissue of Nick Garrie's The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas, originally released in 1968. The Englishman recorded his folk-pop masterpiece in France at the tender age of nineteen. The year was 1968 and Garrie felt ill at ease with the lavish arrangements accompanying his songs. Worse still, the label owner committed suicide and the record virtually disappeared without trace -- until it resurfaced in 2005. Tapete's release includes numerous bonus tracks, rare photograph, and extensive liner notes.

"... The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas feels unmistakably English, and yet never ventures near the childlike tropes of British psychedelia, never hints at prog or flirts with the pastoral folk stylings coming out of the UK in the late 1960s. One very good reason for this oddness is that this album in fact came out of Paris as the result of one heroic act of cross-Channel cultural misunderstanding . . . the story of his debut LP sounds eerily poignant in today's age of European turmoil. It is the tale of a boy who grew up on both sides of the Channel, forever too French for Britain and too British for France, with roots that went back a lot farther still . . . His father's idée fixe meant that come his 18th birthday young Nick found himself in line for two years' service in the French army. Ten years prior to that, the British side of his upbringing had condemned him to the trauma of a Norwich boarding school . . . In his youth, Garrie's 'gods' were Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens and Georges Moustaki. No wonder The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas sounds and feels a lot more like the Tuileries than Hyde Park, more French Riviéra than Brighton pier. In fact the beaches of Saint Tropez were the place where these songs first found an audience when a still teenage Nick Garrie lived precariously on the run from the French army. Having produced some demos in Brussels (included in this collection, alongside a non-album single and one later demo) and renounced his French citizenship, Garrie passed an audition with Lucien Morisse, boss at the then predominant Parisian record label Disc'AZ . . . None other than the eminent Eddie Vartan was employed to give the young Englishman's songs a full orchestral makeover. Having finished his recordings with some 50-odd grumpy French studio hacks in just two weeks, Garrie eagerly awaited the album's release. But on the day before Stanislas was due to appear the news broke that Lucien Morisse had committed suicide. The unexpected death of the man who had signed him also meant the death knell for Garrie's record..." --Robert Rotifer

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LP version. Tapete Records present a remastered reissue of Robert Forster's album The Evangelist, originally released in 2008. Following the 1989 break-up of the Go-Betweens, the band he had formed at college in 1978 with his friend Grant McLennan, Robert Forster embarked on a solo career, releasing four albums under his own name between 1990 and 1996. In 2000, the Go-Betweens reunited and went on to record three albums. Forster and McLennan began working on the tenth Go-Betweens album and had started writing eight songs together. McLennan died of a heart attack in May 2006, and Forster began work on completing three of the songs they had started writing together, all of which are featured on The Evangelist.

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"... Everything could have stayed the same, but you can rely on Levin Stadler to break with the norm. His Levin Goes Lightly project has earned a plethora of plaudits in recent times -- a cover of Iggy Pop's 'Nightclubbing' made it all the way to the master's headphones and straight onto the aforementioned's BBC radio show. Latterly, Trentemøller was curating a compilation (HFN 085CD/LP, 2018) and put in a request to include Levin's song '1989'. Levin Goes Lightly has thus transcended the barriers which usually stand between German pop music and a wider audience. Under normal circumstances, Nackt, the fourth album, might have been expected to continue along the same stylistic path, had Levin not felt the irresistible urge to step outside his comfort zone. In a live context, he has always worked with different musicians, Max Rieger (Die Nerven) among them. Since the last album GA PS, Levin Goes Lightly has developed from a solo project into a collaborative one. The songs on Nackt were crafted with the support of Thomas Zehnle (Wolf Mountains) and Paul Schwarz (Human Abfall). Shortly after the release of GA PS in 2017, this trio began taking regular trips to France, lodging in a remote country house to work on new ideas. Inspired by the strange rural setting, their songwriting sensibilities ventured into the unknown. The most obvious change saw Levin switch to exclusively German lyrics. He did not, however, follow their innate linguistic rhythm, instead choosing to play with ambiguities and irritations. In some places, the lyrics on Nackt echo flowery American metaphor, in others they lurch into the untempered brutality of early NDW (German New Wave) bands. On 'Stroboskop', Levin ultimately expresses his desire in a deep timbre reminiscent of Gabi Delgado (D.A.F.). Heavy vocals weigh down on a weirdly dreamy pop beat with subtle, deep bass. The music on Nackt still ploughs the melodious, psychedelic furrows of beautiful pop we have come to associate with Levin Goes Lightly. But urgent dissonances break through to the surface, engendered perhaps by the morbid depths of the crucible that is Stuttgart. Take the guitar sounds winding around 'Rote Lippen', reverberating with My Bloody Valentine-esque density. Or the hypnotic synthesizer on the title track, recalling Violator period Depeche Mode . . . Tangibility, concreteness slip through our grasp nevertheless: Levin Goes Lightly remains androgynous, a fascinating phenomenon betwixt the icy coolness of a Ziggy Stardust and the comforting intimacy of a time-honored crooner." --David Hutzel

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "... Everything could have stayed the same, but you can rely on Levin Stadler to break with the norm. His Levin Goes Lightly project has earned a plethora of plaudits in recent times -- a cover of Iggy Pop's 'Nightclubbing' made it all the way to the master's headphones and straight onto the aforementioned's BBC radio show. Latterly, Trentemøller was curating a compilation (HFN 085CD/LP, 2018) and put in a request to include Levin's song '1989'. Levin Goes Lightly has thus transcended the barriers which usually stand between German pop music and a wider audience. Under normal circumstances, Nackt, the fourth album, might have been expected to continue along the same stylistic path, had Levin not felt the irresistible urge to step outside his comfort zone. In a live context, he has always worked with different musicians, Max Rieger (Die Nerven) among them. Since the last album GA PS, Levin Goes Lightly has developed from a solo project into a collaborative one. The songs on Nackt were crafted with the support of Thomas Zehnle (Wolf Mountains) and Paul Schwarz (Human Abfall). Shortly after the release of GA PS in 2017, this trio began taking regular trips to France, lodging in a remote country house to work on new ideas. Inspired by the strange rural setting, their songwriting sensibilities ventured into the unknown. The most obvious change saw Levin switch to exclusively German lyrics. He did not, however, follow their innate linguistic rhythm, instead choosing to play with ambiguities and irritations. In some places, the lyrics on Nackt echo flowery American metaphor, in others they lurch into the untempered brutality of early NDW (German New Wave) bands. On 'Stroboskop', Levin ultimately expresses his desire in a deep timbre reminiscent of Gabi Delgado (D.A.F.). Heavy vocals weigh down on a weirdly dreamy pop beat with subtle, deep bass. The music on Nackt still ploughs the melodious, psychedelic furrows of beautiful pop we have come to associate with Levin Goes Lightly. But urgent dissonances break through to the surface, engendered perhaps by the morbid depths of the crucible that is Stuttgart. Take the guitar sounds winding around 'Rote Lippen', reverberating with My Bloody Valentine-esque density. Or the hypnotic synthesizer on the title track, recalling Violator period Depeche Mode . . . Tangibility, concreteness slip through our grasp nevertheless: Levin Goes Lightly remains androgynous, a fascinating phenomenon betwixt the icy coolness of a Ziggy Stardust and the comforting intimacy of a time-honored crooner." --David Hutzel

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. The Catenary Wires are Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher. They specialize in emotive indie duets, capturing the spirits of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, and releasing them into modern Britain. The resulting songs will appeal to fans of Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile or Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. On Til The Morning, they are joined by Andy Lewis (Paul Weller Group, Spearmint) on cello, mellotron, and percussion and Fay Hallam (Makin' Time, Prime Movers) on Hammond organ and backing vocals. Matthew King (a classical composer) plays piano. Nick and Claire Sermon play brass. The local Kentish countryside provides ambient noise. The album was recorded during 2018 at the Sunday School, in the middle of nowhere in Kent. It is a big step forward from their first album, Red Red Skies (2015): more complex and more beguiling, with a multi-layered sound that reflects a range of additional instruments, including harmonium, bells and an old trailer. It was produced by Andy Lewis, who has recently produced albums for Judy Dyble and French Boutik.

Matt Haynes, ex-head of Sarah Records, writes: "When a wire is hung from two fixed points, the shape it makes is a catenary. Its beauty lies in its simplicity -- so natural, so effortless. And when two people who, after starring in a quartet of legendary pop bands, have themselves become pop legends, decide to leave London's indie scene to those with fewer candles on their cakes and set up home in a distant green corner of Kent . . . The sound they make is The Catenary Wires, aka Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, formerly of Tender Trap, Marine Research, Heavenly, and proto-riot-grrrl machismo-mocking punk-pop explosion Talulah Gosh . . . Til The Morning isn't folk music, though, fetishizing the rustic and the past with straw-headed notions of authenticity. The recordings might be home-made in an un-soundproofed room, with each sigh as clear as breath on an icy morning, and the snare an old metal trailer hit with a stick, but they're computer literate and polished to a warm sheen. And when birdsong fills the gaps, it comes with reverb. It isn't lo-fi, either, unfocussed and meandering -- why would two people who've spent their lives crafting three-minute pop gems suddenly do that? The songs are uncluttered because all that's there is what needs to be there..."

$17.00 IN STOCK

The Catenary Wires are Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher. They specialize in emotive indie duets, capturing the spirits of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, and releasing them into modern Britain. The resulting songs will appeal to fans of Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile or Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. On Til The Morning, they are joined by Andy Lewis (Paul Weller Group, Spearmint) on cello, mellotron, and percussion and Fay Hallam (Makin' Time, Prime Movers) on Hammond organ and backing vocals. Matthew King (a classical composer) plays piano. Nick and Claire Sermon play brass. The local Kentish countryside provides ambient noise. The album was recorded during 2018 at the Sunday School, in the middle of nowhere in Kent. It is a big step forward from their first album, Red Red Skies (2015): more complex and more beguiling, with a multi-layered sound that reflects a range of additional instruments, including harmonium, bells and an old trailer. It was produced by Andy Lewis, who has recently produced albums for Judy Dyble and French Boutik.

Matt Haynes, ex-head of Sarah Records, writes: "When a wire is hung from two fixed points, the shape it makes is a catenary. Its beauty lies in its simplicity -- so natural, so effortless. And when two people who, after starring in a quartet of legendary pop bands, have themselves become pop legends, decide to leave London's indie scene to those with fewer candles on their cakes and set up home in a distant green corner of Kent . . . The sound they make is The Catenary Wires, aka Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, formerly of Tender Trap, Marine Research, Heavenly, and proto-riot-grrrl machismo-mocking punk-pop explosion Talulah Gosh . . . Til The Morning isn't folk music, though, fetishizing the rustic and the past with straw-headed notions of authenticity. The recordings might be home-made in an un-soundproofed room, with each sigh as clear as breath on an icy morning, and the snare an old metal trailer hit with a stick, but they're computer literate and polished to a warm sheen. And when birdsong fills the gaps, it comes with reverb. It isn't lo-fi, either, unfocussed and meandering -- why would two people who've spent their lives crafting three-minute pop gems suddenly do that? The songs are uncluttered because all that's there is what needs to be there..."

$17.00 IN STOCK

Elva is the new project of Allo, Darlin's Elizabeth Morris and Ola Innset, of the Norwegian bands Making Marks and Sunturns. Winter Sun was recorded in the Autumn of 2018 in an old school house in the Swedish forest, during moose hunting season. Meaning "The River" in Norwegian, Elva take their inspiration from the natural world, the beauty of the Scandinavian summer and the harshness of the winter. Several of the songs on the album are tellingly inspired by the birth of Elizabeth and Ola's daughter. Some might feel the album is sonically most similar to the Allo, Darlin' album Europe (2012), thanks in part to the lush string arrangements courtesy of long-time Allo, Darlin' collaborator Dan Mayfield on violin and cellist Ofelia Østrem Ossum. Michael Collins, who played drums in Allo, Darlin', recorded and produced the album, building on work he has done in recent years with artists like Metronomy and Girl Ray. Diego Ivars on bass and Jørgen Nordby on drums round out the band. The sonic palate of the record is detailed and delicate, with a mix of acoustic and distorted guitars, vintage keyboards, strings, and intricate vocal harmonies. Lyrically and melodically, the album showcases the depth of both Morris and Innset's songwriting. At times recalling the gentleness and screech of American indie bands like Yo La Tengo, at other times the country-tinged heartbreak of Linda Ronstadt or Laura Veirs, Winter Sun is something of its own: a rich combination of polar opposites. Summer and winter, Australia and Norway. Elizabeth says: "I really wanted to make an album that had a nice mix of really quiet and gentle songs, together with the louder feedback-y stuff. It was great to be able to share songwriting duties with Ola, as finding time to write is trickier these days with a baby in tow, so it really took the pressure off to write all the songs myself. It also gives the album another dimension, and I have always loved bands with two songwriters, like the Go-Betweens. Hopefully we bring out the best in each other's writing. But having less pressure on myself to write all the songs meant that the songs I could contribute felt worthy enough of having a place on the record."

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Elva is the new project of Allo, Darlin's Elizabeth Morris and Ola Innset, of the Norwegian bands Making Marks and Sunturns. Winter Sun was recorded in the Autumn of 2018 in an old school house in the Swedish forest, during moose hunting season. Meaning "The River" in Norwegian, Elva take their inspiration from the natural world, the beauty of the Scandinavian summer and the harshness of the winter. Several of the songs on the album are tellingly inspired by the birth of Elizabeth and Ola's daughter. Some might feel the album is sonically most similar to the Allo, Darlin' album Europe (2012), thanks in part to the lush string arrangements courtesy of long-time Allo, Darlin' collaborator Dan Mayfield on violin and cellist Ofelia Østrem Ossum. Michael Collins, who played drums in Allo, Darlin', recorded and produced the album, building on work he has done in recent years with artists like Metronomy and Girl Ray. Diego Ivars on bass and Jørgen Nordby on drums round out the band. The sonic palate of the record is detailed and delicate, with a mix of acoustic and distorted guitars, vintage keyboards, strings, and intricate vocal harmonies. Lyrically and melodically, the album showcases the depth of both Morris and Innset's songwriting. At times recalling the gentleness and screech of American indie bands like Yo La Tengo, at other times the country-tinged heartbreak of Linda Ronstadt or Laura Veirs, Winter Sun is something of its own: a rich combination of polar opposites. Summer and winter, Australia and Norway. Elizabeth says: "I really wanted to make an album that had a nice mix of really quiet and gentle songs, together with the louder feedback-y stuff. It was great to be able to share songwriting duties with Ola, as finding time to write is trickier these days with a baby in tow, so it really took the pressure off to write all the songs myself. It also gives the album another dimension, and I have always loved bands with two songwriters, like the Go-Betweens. Hopefully we bring out the best in each other's writing. But having less pressure on myself to write all the songs meant that the songs I could contribute felt worthy enough of having a place on the record."

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. 6 Lenins, the third album release from The Proper Ornaments, sees the band master their seemingly effortless but finely-wrought sound as their songwriting prowess refuses to plateau. Fresh from an US tour in autumn 2018, the London jangle pop group led by James Hoare (also of Ultimate Painting/Veronica Falls) and Max Claps (Toy) went into James' home studio in Finsbury Park, London and made their finest recordings to date on a newly-installed 16 track Studer machine -- joined by Danny Nellis (Charles Howl) on bass and Bobby Syme (Wesley Gonzalez) on drums. Having escaped deep, twisting tunnels of illness, divorce and drug abuse to release their second record in January 2017, it's unsurprising they sound sunnier this time around. What their supremely melodic work suggests is a nonchalance or naivety but is in fact an expensively-bought slice of coherence and clarity within a constantly shifting backdrop to their lives and landscapes. The band exists as an unassuming and resilient organism in a fiercely competitive, trashed environmental niche. Throughout their years of hard-edged music industry Darwinism, they've shown longevity and growth scuttling from the wreckage of their previous guitar bands to become one united organism. "We started writing new songs in the summer. I was in bed recovering from hepatitis and very broken and tired so couldn't do anything else apart from playing guitar," says Max, "and the songs slowly started to appear. In August we realized we had five new songs each and free time, so we decided to record them. The actual recording only took two weeks and it was considerably easier than our previous recordings." The speed with which 6 Lenins was made suggests the two songwriters managed to keep a keen focus on what they wanted to achieve, further finessing the balance of conflict and collaboration that lends their sweet, succinct tunes their nervous energy; this is well-crafted songwriting and controlled sonics despite a zealous analog sensibility. The opener "Apologies", sets out stridently and the mood and momentum, even as one weaves through some more somber moments, never dips before soaring with the Velvets-y propeller riff of live favorite "In the Garden" to end the record.