Erased Tapes are proud to announce the first in a series of Bell Orchestre reissues. The band’s landmark debut album Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light is now streaming everywhere, with the original masters being repressed on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2005. The vinyl reissue is out January 13 and available to pre-order now.

Formed in 1999 whilst studying in Montreal, the first music Bell Orchestre made was live scores for contemporary dance performances and puppet shows. Looking back at the band’s early years two decades later, drummer Stefan Schneider says: “Everybody was doing random things to pay the rent like working at cafes, busking, cooking at a daycare, making pizzas, teaching kids in China English by telephone at four in the morning. Mostly in our early 20s, Montreal was cheap, a little grungy and there was a vibrant DIY scene. We were all excited about this special chemistry that was felt making music together.”

A few years later, the writing and recording sessions for Recording a Tape... started taking shape. Most of the music was written in Kaveh Nabatian’s family cabin near a lake in remote Vermont in the deep winter. The roads weren’t ploughed, so to get there the group of friends had to cross a frozen lake on foot, carrying the instruments and boxes of food on sleds over snow and ice.

“The first pieces of music that were actually recorded were the field recordings that became the opening, middle and closing of the album. Pietro and I lived together in this loft that was beside the Lachine canal, and at the bottom of our street there was a traffic tunnel that went underneath the canal, and whenever I went walking down there I noticed the incredible acoustics — the sound of cars driving through it was this immense kind of oceanic sound. Pietro and Kaveh just improvised all these slow moving fanfare ideas, just playing together until their instruments got too cold to play and we eventually had to go inside again”, Richard Reed Parry remembers.

When the group entered the now-legendary Montreal studio Hotel2Tango, Arcade Fire were also recording their eponymous debut Funeral there and the two bands had to take turns recording. Due to the growing interest in Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre was put on hold as members of both bands, Parry and Sarah Neufeld, quickly became occupied with Arcade Fire’s busy touring schedule. “The Bell Orchestre album was almost done, but it kind of sat there. We were just sitting on this album that we were really proud of, but we didn't have anyone to pay attention to it” Parry told Pitchfork in 2005. After signing to Rough Trade the same year, the album was released to critical acclaim and despite being overshadowed has since received cult status among fans.

After almost a decade of hiatus, the band signed to Erased Tapes in 2020. Long-time fan and friend of Bell Orchestre and its individual members, label founder Robert Raths was equally excited about them releasing new music and the opportunity to shine more light on their astonishing body of work.

“This record has always had a firm place in the wider Erased Tapes story, because it contributed heavily to some of us connecting online and eventually meeting in person. It is deeply ingrained in my memory of the time when I had just moved to London. I worked across the street from this small record shop called Pure Groove, where I’m pretty sure I picked up a copy based on its intriguing title and a hand-written note of recommendation by the staff.”

“When retouching the artwork files for this reissue, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. There is this seismographic disc that’s printed on the labels, which is astonishingly similar to the one that forms the basis for the original Erased Tapes mountain logo drawing by Chris Hernandez from 2007. When I pointed this funny little coincidence out to Richard, he immediately agreed it would be damn nice to highlight this connection,” states Robert Raths.

Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light

Bell Orchestre - Les Lumières Pt. 1

Hauschka’s second album for FatCat’s 130701 imprint offers a brilliant advance on 2007’s ‘Room To Expand’. Where the previous album comprised mostly solo recordings of Hauschka’s ‘prepared’ piano (with a few electronic and instrumental overdubs), ‘Ferndorf’ is a far more expansive and fully-realised album, with many of the tracks also featuring a string duo, enabling an increased solidity.

02 Morgenrot

An instrumental for classical guitar with a repeating theme that comes round a few times 

Guitar: Hanika Natural Doubletop - Cedar

Whirligig

06 Space Cat & Elysium - Liquid Dub Connection

Buy Deforestation on vinyl or digital:
Bandcamp: http://smarturl.it/deforest-bc
Norman (UK): http://smarturl.it/deforest-norman
Darla (Distribution): http://smarturl.it/deforest-darla
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/deforest-spotify

Artist Website: http://kaelsmithmusic.com
Artist Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MuteForest

Packaging:
• 180 Gram vinyl in a gatefold tip-on jacket w/resealable sleeve
• Lacquer cut by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering 
• Mastered for vinyl and digital by Taylor Deupree
• Bandcamp DL code on card: formats: FLAC, 320K MP3
• Physical copies only receive a free download of the Reforestation EP, including remixes from Kiln, Ten and Tracer, Western Skies Motel, Mombi, Spheruleus, Porya Hatami, plus two bonus songs from Mute Forest.

In a seemingly ceaseless acreage near his childhood home in the Rockies of Colorado, Kael Smith (Mombi, Khale) takes a deep breath and listens critically to the forest. It is not the same sound he remembers as a youth, when he’d disappear for hours deep into these woods. No, the sound he hears today is unfamiliar and vapid. Muted, really.

Since Smith’s departure to the city of Denver; the Mountain Pine Beetle has moved into these woodlands and decimated the trees; devouring their insides and leaving empty husks in its wake. It is among these thinned out swaths a word keeps repeating back to him, over and over, incessantly…Deforestation. 

Painstakingly written, recorded and mixed at his home studio in Denver, 'Deforestation' (Out November 13th on Lost Tribe Sound) sprawls across nine sonorous and meticulously wrought tracks containing elements of minimal electronic, ambient and folk. Large cavernous beats, micro-ambient deconstruction and nylon guitar all swirl into a coherent palate left for Smith’s poignant, intimate words. 

Mastered specifically for vinyl by Taylor Deupree (12k), and with the additional step taken to create lacquers and metal stampers by Roger Siebel at SAE Mastering, 'Deforestation' sees a gatefold 180-gram release from Lost Tribe Sound that, like the material, takes no shortcuts. Both the album’s acetate and test pressing were scrutinized for anomalies on world-class vinyl setups at Arizona’s esteemed high-end audio dealer and vacuum tube specialists, Arizona Hi-Fi. Concluding the deluxe package and connecting intimately with the material within are stark, disintegrating images courtesy of renowned minimalist photographer Christy Romanick (Rivulets, Chihei Hatakeyam).

Deforestation

From God, To Kane, To Seth

Buy Album 

Mute Forest - From God, To Kane, To Seth

Beginning the journey to the uncharted expanses.
Download: https://soundcloud.com/endhel/beginning-1

Endhel
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Download

Endhel - Beginning

Mandala

múm is back in Berlin in February: After their celebrated performances in the last two years, the Icelanders return to the stage of UM:LAUT right in time for Berlinale. Get your tickets now: http://umlautlive.de/menschenamsonntag/

múm (Gunnar Örn Tynes, Örvar Smárason & Samuli Kosminen) live at Radialsystem on 12 February, 2017.

Together with the percussionist Samuli Kosminen, the founding members of múm, Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Smárason, returned to the UM:LAUT stage to once again perform a splendid live score to “Menschen am Sonntag”, a masterpiece of silent film.

Special thanks to the artists for a great performance, to Carlo Grippa for the amazing sound and for mastering this tune.
Recorded at Radialsystem, Berlin.
Published with permission of the artist.
Photo: Jacob Hansen

Live @ UM:LAUT (12.02.2017)

múm plays Menschen am Sonntag @ UM:LAUT - Live Snippet 3

Sacred Geometry is full of detail and texture. Its emotional depth comes from a connected place. Following my experiences in yoga and plant medicine I began to see the mathematical elegance of nature. To mirror these geometric forms in sound was the source of my creative process.

The first half of the record captures a performance at the 2018 Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Holland. Voice, guitar, synthesiser and field recordings were processed into a collage of mediative sounds. In the second half of the record acoustic sounds are fused with harder electronic processes. The track Toroids represents my vision for this record (almost) perfectly.

Closer consideration for the mysteries of consciousness has led the music to border on the spiritual. I hope people will find something to meditate on in each of these songs in the same way I have.

- Alex Smalley

releases September 27, 2019

Music - Alex Smalley
Violin on The Golden Ratio - Jane Wild
Piano on Dimensionality - Lucia Adam
Mastering - Porya Hatami
Artwork - Rafael Araujo

Thanx to Maria, Alma, Family Schmidt Smalley, Paul @Shimmering Moods, Bic & Jane, Si & Lee, Lucia, Andy, Rafael, Porya and Dmitry for their love and support. I would also like to thank anyone who is listening to my music. We are all connected.

Distant Light

Chequerboard

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