Milieu cover

Milieu

Released

 Tape are a Swedish trio – brothers Johan and Andreas Berthling, with friend Tomas Hallonsten – who came together in the early noughties. Their modus operandi is small-scale compositions that are sufficiently open to admit improvisation, when it suits, and the material is built from a complex of acoustic instrumentation, field recordings, and electronics. Milieu was their second album; on it, you can hear laments that pull from folk and post-rock (the lovely opener, “Oak Player”), spiralling guitar-and-electronics duets (the following “Sponge Chorus”), and open-ended suites that recall Talk Talk’s later period. There were a number of artists exploring similar terrain around this time – Mountains, Minamo, Town & Country – Tape stood out for the pop poetics concealed within the scrum of abstraction.

Jon Dale

Recommended by

Suggestions
Warm and Cool cover

Warm and Cool

Tom Verlaine
Aguirre cover

Aguirre

Popol Vuh
Mark Hollis cover

Mark Hollis

Mark Hollis
Distance cover

Distance

Flying Saucer Attack
The Dead C cover

The Dead C

The Dead C
War Prayers cover

War Prayers

Young People
Ghosts On Water cover

Ghosts On Water

Ghosts on Water, Andrew Chalk, Naoko Suzuki, Daisuke Suzuki