"Not Here" - the third full length album by Tired Tape Machine aka Petter Lindhagen is a creative study in contrasts. The acoustic passages in the songs feel intimate and down to earth while some of the progression can go askew feeling rather unearthly. In songs like Your Ghost the feel is almost mid century chamber music with what sounds like a sad Church choir but as the song progresses and the edgy drum beat shuffles throughout (amidst what sounds like radio waves chirping and spewing static) it turns into something more avant garde. Those same industrial electronic sounds filter in other songs like Sisyphus with great effect. The track Hidden feels very much like a whimsical fairy but the music has a dark under belly with what sounds like a tearful violin that eventually gives way to a post rock guitar. The song possesses a dramatic push and pull.
Stella's Other Waltz and the accompanying Stella's Waltz with it's bells and haunting acoustic piano feels like it pulls you into a past life. Both orchestral pieces are instrumental and can induce real chills. It is part natural beauty and part spectral like a ghostly apparition. Gone (a short interlude) almost feels like a wedding dance of a song but then edges into such a solemn place. Bury builds on subtle vocal harmonies. It is a wonderful slow burn of a song that feels like a slow motion walk after an ordeal of some sort. It feels like an ode to survival and is as much a spiritual embrace as it is a spaghetti western.
Tired Tape Machine's "Not Here" is an album that needs to be heard from start to finish. It is an experience to revel in. It is a head rush of ambient, post folk acoustic guitar and piano, orchestral with touches of post rock. It is mostly instrumental and even the songs with vocals use them in more of an aural than lyrical way. The tone and feel brought to mind a mix of artists like Mogwai, Soley, Nino Rota, Radiohead all crushed through a Pink Floyd-ian filter.
"Not Here" is set to release November 19th through the Feeder label.
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Robb Donker
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