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
Tussilago Fánfara cover

Tussilago Fánfara

Anna Själv Tredje
Empty Vessels cover

Empty Vessels

Colin Offord
War Prayers cover

War Prayers

Young People
A Journey cover

A Journey

Ché-SHIZU
Surface Of The Earth cover

Surface Of The Earth

Surface of the Earth
Paquet Surprise cover

Paquet Surprise

Greg Davis, Sebastien Roux
Orr cover

Orr

Paul Kendall, Robert Hampson, Bruce Gilbert
Pena ao Mar cover

Pena ao Mar

Carla Boregas