Black Tape For A Blue Girl perform live in Prague 11 June 2011.
Tag: ProjektRecords Page 1 of 2
Polly Fae has released a brand new album, a digital-only release available for name-your-price (including free). Do the right thing and pay something if you can. Here is the info from Projekt Records:
Created over the first months of the 2020 global pandemic lockdown, Metamorphosis is Polly Fae’s most personal and sultry album to date. The songs were born from a different place, a more guarded place. They take Fae’s muse in a new direction within the dreamy pop genre. The 10 edgy tracks shed light on an unsettling yet provocative awakening of new worlds within worlds. The album is laced with sensual vocals upon jagged, moody and somber electronics balancing against an instrumental atmosphere of an eerie calm.
“I let the songs do what they wanted to do,” Fae reflects, “To go wherever they wanted to go. As a result, they turned out raw and erratic. They took a life of their own. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to release this because it felt a bit too personal. Then I realized that these ARE the songs I’ve always wanted to share. These songs reveal new depths and layers to everything I’ve long been communicating within my work.”
With Metamorphosis, there’s a spinning and a cocooning and a busting out of silk. “Through these songs, my wings expand as I soar into new terrain. As with pencil sketches, these songs form tense beginnings, gaining texture and dimension in the thickening middle. They smooth out in the end to a fulfillment of a haunted but graceful calm, holding just enough of the delicate lines created in the beginning of this journey while maintaining a fundamental life force throughout. This is my heart and soul laid bare.”
Raw and restless, Metamorphosis holds a chrysalis of moody compositions that delve into vulnerable pathways of the heart. Ten songs escort the listener on a nebulous terrain of transformation, casting a shadowplay of harmonic codes to reconstruct the circuitry of the soul. Let go and unravel; weave back together with wings to fly.
Name-your-price download at Bandcamp
The new release, titled Highlights, is available for digital download from Projekt Records on Bandcamp. This is a name-your-price (including free) release. Of course the right thing to do is pay something if you can.
From the album’s description:
Ethereal, evocative, powerful and introspective, Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s recent studio albums expand upon the sweeping darkwave / art rock aesthetic they’ve developed over the past 34 years. Their eclectic, modernist approach refreshes BlackTape’s pioneering musical sentiments while maintaining the unique originality of their sound.
HIGHLIGHTS collects 10-tracks in a 50 minute overview of their last four years, ranging from ethereal dream pop to brooding darkwave, to atmospheric ambient drone. Three non-album cuts include a re-recording of 1989’s “Through sky blue rooms,” while on the 2020 exclusive-to-this-collection version of 1987’s “Scream, my shallow” vocalist Danielle Herrera recreates this harrowing story of obsession and denial.
Discovery 2 from Projekt Records is now available at Bandcamp.
From the album’s description:
The Discovery series introduces you to unsigned and underground artists you might not otherwise hear. The styles cover a wide spectrum from shoegaze to dreampop to synth pop — from post-punk to new wave to dark synthgaze. Lots of great music on this collection for fans of the darker, song-oriented side of the Projekt label.
The album is pay-what-you-want – including free – and the songs can all be previewed. So, grab a download, make a donation if you can, and enjoy a good listen to music you won’t otherwise find.
Please note: Discovery 1 is still available, also for pay-what-you-want, on Bandcamp. It has some great songs!
A Black Tape For A Blue Girl double feature.
First up is the first new Black Tape video in years, In my memories from the album To Touch the Milky Way.
Next up is Slow Blur from the 1986 album The Rope. This video now available for the first time in a digital format.
Sometimes, when you mix two things together, you wind up with something greater than the sum of the parts. Here is a great musical example of this process. Start with a short, sweet song written by Sam Rosenthal of Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Now combine it with Love Spirals Downwards’ Suzanne Perry’s lush vocals and Ryan Lum’s guitar, and you get a version of the song that either gives me chills or brings tears to my eyes – or sometimes both.
Oh, and how about some free music?
As I was preparing this post, completely coincidentally, Projekt Records has released the album this song is taken from as a name-your-price (including free) digital release on Bandcamp. The album, of these reminders, is 2-CD tribute to early Black Tape For A blue Girl music. You should definitely get it, and yes you should definitely pay at least something for it. We need to support the artists. I do.
Free for a limited time at bandcamp.com
Polly Fae (known previously as Paulina Cassidy) returns with quiet bewitchment on her new album of 15 swirling atmospheric pieces straddling the boundaries of ambient and dream pop.
This is a name-your-price – including free – download at Bandcamp. But you know you should donate something, it’s the right thing to do. I purchased the CD just beacause.
Be sure to visit Polly Fae’s web site and explore her art and music.
While you’re at it, spend some time browsing around Bandcamp – there is so much great music there. For the curious, my Bandcamp profile is here.
Name-your-price offer on Bandcamp.
Sam’s 1984 album of minimal-synth / synthwave is #free on Bandcamp for a limited time.
| Originally released on vinyl in March 1984, Tanzmusik is one of minimal synth’s top Holy Grails. Recorded in the electronic style now known as synthwave, it was the first LP from Sam Rosenthal, founder of the iconic Projekt Records label and mind behind one of the most influential darkwave acts out of the US, Black Tape For A Blue Girl. A historic work that deserves to be torn from oblivion, Tanzmusik was completely recorded at home on a four-track TEAC-2340 with a super minimal setup (Korg Poly-61, Moog Realistic Concertmate MG-1, Boss Dr-110 and some effects). The ’84 vinyl release was limited to 250 copies with a tannish card glued to a white LP jacket; the re-release in 2012 was an edition of 500 on Italy’s Mannequin label. All physical formats are once again sold out, but the album lives on in the digital world, with a name-your-price-download at Bandcamp. In 2012, The Big Takeover wrote: “Released at a time shortly before the forming of his band, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, the listener might well be stunned by what they hear. Instead of the dark — some may call it ‘goth’ — sounds that he would soon become famous for, Tanzmusik is a record that is oddly upbeat, somewhat poppy in nature, yet with a prog-rock heart that’s equally undeniable. It’s not quite New Wave, it’s not quite progressive, it’s not quite darkwave — but it is an interesting compilation of the ideas of a talented young man with numerous ideas in his head about directions he could go. “ Recorded when Sam was 19, the album continued in the “electronic mood-music” tradition established on three earlier cassette-only releases. With the added intrigues of the drum-computer, Tanzmusik explored the realms of electronic music that critics at the time compared to Tangerine Dream, O.M.D., Brian Eno and these days also compare to Cluster and the first Human League. Sam writes, “When contacted about a re-issue in 2010 by Alessandro Adriani at Mannequin, I decided to remaster the album for them. After getting the digitized recordings back from my mastering guy in Canada, I discovered it wasn’t the stereo 2-track mix at all but the actual 4-track recording. Wow! I thought the multis were long gone, but here they were in pristine digital form! I remixed the album in my studio, staying true to the original – while bringing back a few instruments that were buried in the ’84 mix. Sonically, the current version sounds even more incredible than it did back in 1984!” “Before I remixed the album, I had not listened to it in probably 15 years. In my memories of the album, I thought the ambient songs were the good ones, and the synth-pop ones were the weak link. But now I think I like the synth-pop ones — like “Alone” and “We Return” — more. On the other hand, I really like that sequencer at the beginning of “The Coming Fall.” If my Korg Poly-61 wasn’t dead, I would set up that patch again and write something new around it; I still have all the notes for my synth settings for the songs. Scary. Overall, I am a lot happier with the album than I expected to be. When Alessandro got in touch with me about releasing it, I was sort of skeptical, and procrastinated a whole bunch. But when I started actually working on it, I liked it. It’s quite a nice album. Schizophrenic, but that’s OK.” Sam Rosenthal is an American artist. He is the founder and leader of the band Black Tape For a Blue Girl and the record label Projekt Records (35th anniversary in 2018). He lives in Portland Oregon with his son and cat. Black Tape For a Blue Girl — begun in 1986 after his move from Florida to California — serves as a vehicle for Rosenthal’s musical vision. Its signature combination of gothic, ethereal, ambient and neo-classical elements explores existential themes of loves lost and passions yet to come. After releasing 9 cassettes and the LP of his early electronic work prior to 1986, he developed a full-fledged band whose members revolve around Rosenthal’s subtle electronic foundation. In the last few years he has also been releasing electronic solo work under the names As Lonely As Dave Bowman and Sam Rosenthal, as well as collaborations with other artists. Click Here for the history of Projekt’s out-of-print releases, and Sam’s early electronic releases. |
Projekt Records has released a new, free, music sampler. The Projekt Spring 2019 sampler is almost two hours long and can be downloaded for free through bandcamp.com. Yes, it really is free, but anything you choose to pay is greatly appreciated — 14 tracks (all of which can be previewed), 10 artists — yes, it is definitely worth ponying up a couple bucks at least. I am not affiliated with Projekt, I just love what they do and support them as much as I can.
Don’t forget, bandcamp.com is a great place to find new music and support the artists. You can check out my bandcamp profile of purchases and wish list here.
New music is always good news. Here are a couple new selections available though the fine folks at Bandcamp.
Chandeen:
Rogue
This is a 5-track digital only EP.
Black Tape For A Blue Girl:
Knock Three Times (2010 live with Nicki Jaine)
This is a 3-track digital only EP, priced as pay-what-you-want (even free). Real supporters of course at least tip the artist, right?
Anyway, head over to Bandcamp.com, give a listen and support these artists – or some other artists. New (to you) music is good for the soul.