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
Sometime Today cover

Sometime Today

Darren Tate, Paul Bradley
Secession 96 cover

Secession 96

Magic Hour
Charivari Music cover

Charivari Music

Morphogenesis
Distance cover

Distance

Flying Saucer Attack
Two Sisters cover

Two Sisters

Sarah Davachi
Movietone cover

Movietone

Movietone
Senshu cover

Senshu

Andrew Chalk, Naoko Suzuki, Daisuke Suzuki