John Blades i Peter Doyle u vremenu vide ruševinu.
Album je nadahnut trima rečenicama koje Bogart izgovara u filmu Na usamljenom mjestu: “I Was Born When She Kissed Me”, “I Died When She Left Me” i “I Lived A Few Weeks While She Loved Me”.
Time noir u najboljem izdanju.
Inspired by three lines of dialogue from the Humphrey Bogart 1950 classic, ‘In A Lonely Place’ is the surgical exploration of a classic era noir: a descent from glittering surface tension to sinister murky depth. As with all Tape Loop Orchestra releases, the theme is one of decay – a certain blurred focus disintegrating into fragile remembered phrases, echoing the "film’s dive from romantic optimism into malevolent violence.
In a textbook example of art mirroring life, the album’s script within a script reflects the tension and emotion of the film director Nicolas Ray was directing his then wife Gloria Grahame during the breakdown of their relationship. Recorded and edited by Andrew Hargreaves over three months on a modified 4-track and walkman loop, these three powerful and precise pieces from one side of a C90 are proudly brought to you on a limited edition 300 run on 180gm vinyl by Facture. Mastered in black and white widescreen by James Plotkin, the stunning packaging features hand numbered heavy-duty gatefold and printed inner sleeves designed by Craig Tattersall, photography by Joe Borreson, hand numbered/stamped A2 collage poster designed by Alice Clarke, hand numbered cut out ACD Sleeve CD with inserts, 12 x 12 heavy card stock print, download code, plus scent and extras. - fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/
Finally, after years of coaxing, Andrew Hargreaves commits his Tape Loop Orchestra to vinyl for "the noir at heart". Over the course of some four CD albums and singles TLO's grainy, slow-spooling soundscapes have come to inhabit a special place in the collections of home listeners from Tokyo to Bacup. For his first vinyl edition, he apparently takes inspiration from three lines of dialogue from the titular Humphrey Bogart 1950 classic, reflecting "a descent from glittery surface tension to sinister murky depth" in his music's long-running themes of decay and solitude, and most poignantly echoing the film's "dive from romantic optimism into malevolent violence." Of course, the violence isn't literal - there's no power noise finales - but the atmosphere makes for a deeply heavy-hearted yet cathartic experience whose creeping subtlety and finely woven metanarrative can be as crushing, euphoric or involving as you'll allow. Using modified 4-track and walkman loop, the recording and subsequent editing took place over three months, yielding three extended pieces of glacially paced, sepia-toned harmonic drift layering wilting strings against barren, mossy backdrops where we'd imagine projections of Gloria Grahame and Bogart to play out scenes every bit as heart-rending as the music. Packaged with design and artwork from fellow Moteer man, Craig Tattersall and close friend Alice Clarke, plus a sensitive master by James Plotkin, this record is destined to be adored by his TLO's cult following and more. - boomkat
One of the three admirals of the appreciated band The Boats, Andrew Hargreaves, comes back with his interesting personal project Tape Loop Orchestra, whose release got inspired by an authentic noir masterpiece, "In A Lonely Place", an old film by Nicholas Ray, starring Humphrey Bogart and film director's wife Gloria Grahame (in a moment when their relationship was on the break point...) and based on an adaptation of the homonymous novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. The most bizarre and somewhat controversial aspect of the plot is a certain mirroring of real life happenings: Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) breaks the relationship with the cynical screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), whose inflammable temperament and irascible behaviour stoke the suspicion of being the assassin of the story as well as her fear and distrust, so that it seems the fiction mirror reality. Moreover even the choice of the title and the profile of the screenwriter (his isolation among people, his selfishness and quick-tempered behaviour as well as his drunkenness) according to essayist Louise Brooks had some references to the real Bogart. The titles of the three long tracks - the first two tracks are real time live takes, while the third one is their editing -, which have been recorded on a modified 4-track and walkman loop, have been named from the words Dix said to Laurel in the car, which were also written on a page in the typewriter of the original end of the movie: "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me.". The devices used by Andrew which perfectly filled a C90 tape, before pouring the final result into vynil, managed to antiquate the sound, which seems to reflect a promenade within a fading and surreal scene by entrancing loops of feathered overstretched tunes, graceful repetitive blows and dazzling reverberation, whose subtle fluctuations gradually discloses lovely fragile melodies. -http://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/?id=7351
01. For Marx, history is a series of repetitions. The degree to
which the repetition constitutes a farce or triumph is the degree to
which a revolution was a failure or success.
02. For Kierkegaard, life is a series of repetitions. One day you set out on a trip, and the trip was good. A year later, you return, and the trip is not the same as it was before.
03. For Proust, memory is a series of repetitions. You hear a little phrase of music at a party, and that phrase contains the world. Over time, the world — a looping phrase — becomes a weathered relic. Suddenly, it returns, and then decays a little more.
04. Do we even need appeals to authority to tell us what we already know? That things invariably repeat? We live it every day. It is structured into our bodies, our routines, our grief, our worship, our love, etc. Art, for instance, has almost always been a study of repetition. Today is no different. Tomorrow will not be, either.
05. That every band is a repetition, for instance, is a tedious fact of music criticism. We need to find new ways to talk about what we’ve already heard. For instance, Andrew Hargreaves’ Tape Loop Orchestra has released their third (perhaps, technically, fourth) album, In A Lonely Place, and it is essentially the same as what preceded it. It is even the same length as the others: 45 minutes, the side of a tape.
06. The album itself is based upon repetitions. The title, “In a Lonely Place,” is the same as Nicholas Ray’s film, which inspired the album itself. The song titles are phrases taken from the script: “I Was Born When She Kissed Me,” and “I Died When She Left Me,” and “I Lived A Few Weeks While She Loved Me.” Ray’s film is about art mirroring life: a film about a film makers — both Bogart’s character, Dix and Ray himself — and about the disintegration of both.
07. Film, like tape, disintegrates. However, Tape Loop Orchestra’s is a presentation of decay (as in Decasia) rather than an exploitation of it (as in Basinski’s Disintegration Loops). In exploring the relationship between repetition and decay, Hargreaves talks about the eventual, temporal revelation of the fragile thing. When substance is broken down through repetition, you come closer to what is at the core of the thing itself. He continues, and I respect him for this: “There is perhaps a bigger question about the divide between good and evil but I don’t think I’m qualified to answer such things, especially with something as abstract as music.” It’s not that, as Auden said of Yeats, that the work of art is unable to act, to speak. Rather, that it was never going to do anything in the first place but live and die. The process is what In a Lonely Place is about.
08. Suffice to say, it is a gorgeous process: that is, the phrase, meticulously composed, looped, developed, and finally broken down. I’ll spare you the purple prose, but I highly recommend you listen to it. Hargreaves is a master at what he does, which is repeat himself. If you’ve heard previous work by Tape Loop Orchestra, or even his band, The Boats (whose Ballads of the Research Department was a personal favorite from 2012), you will already know that I mean this as a compliment.
09. There are two moments in Nicholas Ray’s film that bear repeating. The first is the scene in which Dix first tells Grahame’s character, Laurel, about the the phrases he can’t yet fit into his own script, the film within the film: “I was born when she kissed me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me, and I died when she left me.” The second is Ray’s stunning reversal, when, at the end of the film, Dix is fleeing Laurel’s rejection, and Laurel says, quietly, to herself, in her own script: “I lived a few weeks while you loved me.” It’s essentially a tape loop in miniature, playing, and a profound repetition.
10. No, there is no appeal to authority necessary to understand repetition or decay. Still, given the relentless persistence of the fact, isn’t it a relief that we have artists and works, like In a Lonely Place, willing to explore it with such depth and elegance? -
Beach Sloth
The Needle Drop
Chain D. L. K.
To Eleven
Life Is Noise
The Unhappy Clef.
Inspired by three lines of dialogue from the Humphrey Bogart 1950 classic, ‘In A Lonely Place’ is the surgical exploration of a classic era noir: a descent from glittering surface tension to sinister murky depth. As with all Tape Loop Orchestra releases, the theme is one of decay – a certain blurred focus disintegrating into fragile remembered phrases, echoing the film’s dive from romantic optimism into malevolent violence.
“I Died When She Left Me”
In a textbook example of art mirroring life, the album’s script within a script reflects the tension and emotion of the film director Nicolas Ray was directing his then wife Gloria Grahame during the breakdown of their relationship. Recorded and edited by Andrew Hargreaves over three months on a modified 4-track and walkman loop, these three powerful and precise pieces from one side of a C90 are proudly brought to 180gm vinyl by Facture. Mastered in black and white widescreen by James Plotkin, the stunning packaging features heavy-duty gatefold and printed inner sleeves designed by Craig Tattersall, photography by Joe Borreson, A2 collage poster designed by Alice Clarke, cut out ACD Sleeve CD with inserts and a 12 x 12 double sided heavy card stock print.
“I Lived A Few Weeks While She Loved Me”
…………
Andrew expands on the themes of the project -
When did you first become in interested in noir?
I cannot pinpoint the exact point when my interest occurred. I remember catching a lot of these films when they were shown late at night on TV and being struck by the themes of the classic era noir’s. The contrast between glamour and the sinister underneath, and how quickly the balance so shifts between the two. How one bad decision leads to another and another until ‘good’ people are pulled into the dark underworld. Before I knew it I was tracking these films down and began reading the pulps that they were based on.
What was the particular element of the film that stood out to you, in terms of referencing it?
For me ‘In A Lonely Place’ is the noir of noir’s! There is so much tension and emotion in the film due to the fact that director Nicolas Ray was directing his then wife Gloria Grahame (queen of the noir’s) while they were going through the break down of their relationship! So we have a case of art mirroring life (without the murder suspicion).
It’s interesting how those two elements connect, especially how the glamour is presented as a facade, and the sinister is presented as the harsh reality. Is that type of juxtaposition present on the record?
OK, where to begin! Maybe if we take a small step back?
The overall theme of my TLO work is decay, but not as a negative force, more of a change (however slight). Even though change can be difficult it also heralds something new, which keeps us from falling into the status quo. With regards to this album the tracks have a certain focus at the beginning (albeit a little blurred) that then goes through a process of breaking itself down to only have remembered phrases that have recombined into something new but more fragile. You can never pinpoint this change as it happens so slowly, which mirrors the film noir aspect, how a character can go from wooing and dancing with a dame in one shot then getting called to his office to help out administering a violent beating someone who has wronged them, only to return all smiles with romance in his heart for the last dance! There is perhaps a bigger question about the divide between good and evil but I don’t think I am qualified to answer such things, especially with something as abstract as music.
Had you had this project in mind for long, to reference the film?
The research period for the album was about three months.
How long did the project take to record?
The physical recordings are made in real time live takes. Then I edit these together to create a more direct version. In A Lonely Place was recorded and edited between December 2011 and January 2012 in three sessions. So a really quick process when compared to the 2 years plus of the last Boats album. However the research time before recording takes a little longer, working out the sounds and loops, which method of recording will best suite the idea and of course the reference points that need hitting (either subtle or obvious).
What was the recording process over those three sessions?
Two sessions were the actual recording of the live takes and the third was the editing. The recordings utilised a slightly modified 4-track and walkman, the tape running out of the four track to the walkman with the audio returning back into the four track to create the delay/feedback loop. Also running into the four track were a laptop and simple guitar delay effect.
Was the project always intended for vinyl? The track lengths are very symmetrical.
When recording the album I knew I wanted it to be exactly 45 minutes, as a tip of the hat to one side of a C90 (also my last works under TLO have been this length too!!). I did not think about the final format, this all came about when Dan from Facture asked if I had any thing I would like to submit for consideration for the label. As I had just finished the album a few days before it was a case of synchronicity and when the universe speaks you have to listen!
Is the 4 track/walkman a configuration you use often, or is it a specific set up for this project?
For this album the 4-track/walkman method was the easiest way to keep control of the mix and most direct workflow. Other TLO albums have been recorded using different combinations of 4-track/walkman/2-track sometimes multiple walkman’s to create a more layered delay. From experimenting with these different methods you always have an indeterminate element which you have to react to.
Was the C90 reference from the tracks particular to the project itself, or is that an ongoing hat tip for you? Did you use a C90 in the walkman?
The reference started with my second release under the TLO moniker and has continued from there, with the exception of the Book Report I did for Wist Rec which limited the time due to format restrictions. The first album was never really intended to be released was more of a research project, but Craig asked me to contribute to his Cotton Goods label so I assembled some of the experiments and thought it would be a one shot deal of a project.
The design for the artwork is fantastic; was there a story behind it?
I knew that the artwork had to have a strong reference to the whole film noir scene as anything else would seem unauthentic. So I first contacted my friend Joe Borreson to see if he would be interested in getting involved with the project. Joe lives near San Francisco, where many noir’s were either shot or located so it made perfect sense for him to gather shots. I sent him a copy of the album and some background on the film and let him do the rest. He sent over some amazing shots that really captured the spirit of the album. Joe has been part of the Boats back room team for a number of years now, giving us opinions on early mixes, titles for albums and playing banjo on a track of ours. So it is really cool that he has been involved with this album too!
The poster collage was created by fellow noir head Alice Clarke. Alice has been making these wonderful collage pieces as birthday/Christmas cards for her friends for a number of years now and I knew that she would create the perfect image to fit the album art. Also I don’t think she would have forgiven me if I had made a homage to film noir without her involvement!
One of the added extras of being in a band with Craig is that I get access to his art skills! For this project he handled all the layout and typography. As we have been working together for so long he is really good at taking my vague descriptions and making them concrete. He took all the elements and put them together real spiffy! - Charles Sage for Fluid Radio
02. For Kierkegaard, life is a series of repetitions. One day you set out on a trip, and the trip was good. A year later, you return, and the trip is not the same as it was before.
03. For Proust, memory is a series of repetitions. You hear a little phrase of music at a party, and that phrase contains the world. Over time, the world — a looping phrase — becomes a weathered relic. Suddenly, it returns, and then decays a little more.
04. Do we even need appeals to authority to tell us what we already know? That things invariably repeat? We live it every day. It is structured into our bodies, our routines, our grief, our worship, our love, etc. Art, for instance, has almost always been a study of repetition. Today is no different. Tomorrow will not be, either.
05. That every band is a repetition, for instance, is a tedious fact of music criticism. We need to find new ways to talk about what we’ve already heard. For instance, Andrew Hargreaves’ Tape Loop Orchestra has released their third (perhaps, technically, fourth) album, In A Lonely Place, and it is essentially the same as what preceded it. It is even the same length as the others: 45 minutes, the side of a tape.
06. The album itself is based upon repetitions. The title, “In a Lonely Place,” is the same as Nicholas Ray’s film, which inspired the album itself. The song titles are phrases taken from the script: “I Was Born When She Kissed Me,” and “I Died When She Left Me,” and “I Lived A Few Weeks While She Loved Me.” Ray’s film is about art mirroring life: a film about a film makers — both Bogart’s character, Dix and Ray himself — and about the disintegration of both.
07. Film, like tape, disintegrates. However, Tape Loop Orchestra’s is a presentation of decay (as in Decasia) rather than an exploitation of it (as in Basinski’s Disintegration Loops). In exploring the relationship between repetition and decay, Hargreaves talks about the eventual, temporal revelation of the fragile thing. When substance is broken down through repetition, you come closer to what is at the core of the thing itself. He continues, and I respect him for this: “There is perhaps a bigger question about the divide between good and evil but I don’t think I’m qualified to answer such things, especially with something as abstract as music.” It’s not that, as Auden said of Yeats, that the work of art is unable to act, to speak. Rather, that it was never going to do anything in the first place but live and die. The process is what In a Lonely Place is about.
08. Suffice to say, it is a gorgeous process: that is, the phrase, meticulously composed, looped, developed, and finally broken down. I’ll spare you the purple prose, but I highly recommend you listen to it. Hargreaves is a master at what he does, which is repeat himself. If you’ve heard previous work by Tape Loop Orchestra, or even his band, The Boats (whose Ballads of the Research Department was a personal favorite from 2012), you will already know that I mean this as a compliment.
09. There are two moments in Nicholas Ray’s film that bear repeating. The first is the scene in which Dix first tells Grahame’s character, Laurel, about the the phrases he can’t yet fit into his own script, the film within the film: “I was born when she kissed me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me, and I died when she left me.” The second is Ray’s stunning reversal, when, at the end of the film, Dix is fleeing Laurel’s rejection, and Laurel says, quietly, to herself, in her own script: “I lived a few weeks while you loved me.” It’s essentially a tape loop in miniature, playing, and a profound repetition.
10. No, there is no appeal to authority necessary to understand repetition or decay. Still, given the relentless persistence of the fact, isn’t it a relief that we have artists and works, like In a Lonely Place, willing to explore it with such depth and elegance? -
Beach Sloth
The Needle Drop
Chain D. L. K.
To Eleven
Life Is Noise
The Unhappy Clef.
Film Noir: Discussion With Tape Loop Orchestra
Posted On: December 18, 2012
Posted In: Andrew Hargreaves, Charles Sage, Facture, Film Noir, Film Noir: Discussion With Tape Loop Orchestra, In A Lonely Place, Tape loop Orchestra
Comments: No Responses
“I Was Born When She Kissed Me”Posted In: Andrew Hargreaves, Charles Sage, Facture, Film Noir, Film Noir: Discussion With Tape Loop Orchestra, In A Lonely Place, Tape loop Orchestra
Comments: No Responses
Inspired by three lines of dialogue from the Humphrey Bogart 1950 classic, ‘In A Lonely Place’ is the surgical exploration of a classic era noir: a descent from glittering surface tension to sinister murky depth. As with all Tape Loop Orchestra releases, the theme is one of decay – a certain blurred focus disintegrating into fragile remembered phrases, echoing the film’s dive from romantic optimism into malevolent violence.
“I Died When She Left Me”
In a textbook example of art mirroring life, the album’s script within a script reflects the tension and emotion of the film director Nicolas Ray was directing his then wife Gloria Grahame during the breakdown of their relationship. Recorded and edited by Andrew Hargreaves over three months on a modified 4-track and walkman loop, these three powerful and precise pieces from one side of a C90 are proudly brought to 180gm vinyl by Facture. Mastered in black and white widescreen by James Plotkin, the stunning packaging features heavy-duty gatefold and printed inner sleeves designed by Craig Tattersall, photography by Joe Borreson, A2 collage poster designed by Alice Clarke, cut out ACD Sleeve CD with inserts and a 12 x 12 double sided heavy card stock print.
“I Lived A Few Weeks While She Loved Me”
…………
Andrew expands on the themes of the project -
When did you first become in interested in noir?
I cannot pinpoint the exact point when my interest occurred. I remember catching a lot of these films when they were shown late at night on TV and being struck by the themes of the classic era noir’s. The contrast between glamour and the sinister underneath, and how quickly the balance so shifts between the two. How one bad decision leads to another and another until ‘good’ people are pulled into the dark underworld. Before I knew it I was tracking these films down and began reading the pulps that they were based on.
What was the particular element of the film that stood out to you, in terms of referencing it?
For me ‘In A Lonely Place’ is the noir of noir’s! There is so much tension and emotion in the film due to the fact that director Nicolas Ray was directing his then wife Gloria Grahame (queen of the noir’s) while they were going through the break down of their relationship! So we have a case of art mirroring life (without the murder suspicion).
It’s interesting how those two elements connect, especially how the glamour is presented as a facade, and the sinister is presented as the harsh reality. Is that type of juxtaposition present on the record?
OK, where to begin! Maybe if we take a small step back?
The overall theme of my TLO work is decay, but not as a negative force, more of a change (however slight). Even though change can be difficult it also heralds something new, which keeps us from falling into the status quo. With regards to this album the tracks have a certain focus at the beginning (albeit a little blurred) that then goes through a process of breaking itself down to only have remembered phrases that have recombined into something new but more fragile. You can never pinpoint this change as it happens so slowly, which mirrors the film noir aspect, how a character can go from wooing and dancing with a dame in one shot then getting called to his office to help out administering a violent beating someone who has wronged them, only to return all smiles with romance in his heart for the last dance! There is perhaps a bigger question about the divide between good and evil but I don’t think I am qualified to answer such things, especially with something as abstract as music.
Had you had this project in mind for long, to reference the film?
The research period for the album was about three months.
How long did the project take to record?
The physical recordings are made in real time live takes. Then I edit these together to create a more direct version. In A Lonely Place was recorded and edited between December 2011 and January 2012 in three sessions. So a really quick process when compared to the 2 years plus of the last Boats album. However the research time before recording takes a little longer, working out the sounds and loops, which method of recording will best suite the idea and of course the reference points that need hitting (either subtle or obvious).
What was the recording process over those three sessions?
Two sessions were the actual recording of the live takes and the third was the editing. The recordings utilised a slightly modified 4-track and walkman, the tape running out of the four track to the walkman with the audio returning back into the four track to create the delay/feedback loop. Also running into the four track were a laptop and simple guitar delay effect.
Was the project always intended for vinyl? The track lengths are very symmetrical.
When recording the album I knew I wanted it to be exactly 45 minutes, as a tip of the hat to one side of a C90 (also my last works under TLO have been this length too!!). I did not think about the final format, this all came about when Dan from Facture asked if I had any thing I would like to submit for consideration for the label. As I had just finished the album a few days before it was a case of synchronicity and when the universe speaks you have to listen!
Is the 4 track/walkman a configuration you use often, or is it a specific set up for this project?
For this album the 4-track/walkman method was the easiest way to keep control of the mix and most direct workflow. Other TLO albums have been recorded using different combinations of 4-track/walkman/2-track sometimes multiple walkman’s to create a more layered delay. From experimenting with these different methods you always have an indeterminate element which you have to react to.
Was the C90 reference from the tracks particular to the project itself, or is that an ongoing hat tip for you? Did you use a C90 in the walkman?
The reference started with my second release under the TLO moniker and has continued from there, with the exception of the Book Report I did for Wist Rec which limited the time due to format restrictions. The first album was never really intended to be released was more of a research project, but Craig asked me to contribute to his Cotton Goods label so I assembled some of the experiments and thought it would be a one shot deal of a project.
The design for the artwork is fantastic; was there a story behind it?
I knew that the artwork had to have a strong reference to the whole film noir scene as anything else would seem unauthentic. So I first contacted my friend Joe Borreson to see if he would be interested in getting involved with the project. Joe lives near San Francisco, where many noir’s were either shot or located so it made perfect sense for him to gather shots. I sent him a copy of the album and some background on the film and let him do the rest. He sent over some amazing shots that really captured the spirit of the album. Joe has been part of the Boats back room team for a number of years now, giving us opinions on early mixes, titles for albums and playing banjo on a track of ours. So it is really cool that he has been involved with this album too!
The poster collage was created by fellow noir head Alice Clarke. Alice has been making these wonderful collage pieces as birthday/Christmas cards for her friends for a number of years now and I knew that she would create the perfect image to fit the album art. Also I don’t think she would have forgiven me if I had made a homage to film noir without her involvement!
One of the added extras of being in a band with Craig is that I get access to his art skills! For this project he handled all the layout and typography. As we have been working together for so long he is really good at taking my vague descriptions and making them concrete. He took all the elements and put them together real spiffy! - Charles Sage for Fluid Radio
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