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black tape for a blue girl : press quotes Quick Quotes
"black tape for a blue girl is poised to benefit from the pop mainstream's growing interest in the goth-pop movement. Over the years, Black tape for a blue girl has become Projekt Records' best selling artist." Billboard Magazine "black tape does a beautiful job of creating a lush, all-enveloping sound that's soothing yet brooding." CMJ New Music Monthly "The band's songs are exuberantly melodic, often catastrophic and always rooted in neoclassical forms." The Riverfront Times, St. Louis "A hidden treasure of a band. Their sound is lush, full and beautiful; this is beauty with an edge." San Francisco Chronicle "Complemented by strings and wind instruments, this soft, brooding, and beautiful music posseses a rare, regal quality." Illinois Entertainer, Chicago "Far from depressing, they bring beauty and depth to a genre known more for sorrow and menace." LA Weekly "Intermingling the addition of Lisa Feuer's elegant flute with Rosenthal's trademark waves of dark, haunting electronics, the group's garnering media attention like never before." Cleveland Free Times "Moving from anguish to serenity, black tape succesfully fashion a range of profound emotions into a vivid musical landscape." Keyboard Magazine Detailed Quotes black tape's 1996 Remnants of a deeper purity was chosen as one of Alternative Press' Ten Essential Goth Albums, October 2001. "While the Brits had goth, America created darkwave - and black tape were there at its birth. Every one of their albums is somehow representative, but Remnants gets the nod not only for its cohesion, but also for the hair-raisingly effective use of classical instrumentation alongside the electronics. The electronics are orchestral, the strings are sublime, and the lyrics have an almost Byronic sadness."
"The Wizard of Id. black tape for a blue girl's Sam Rosenthal has had enough of silly love songs. Electronic music at times could be called the aural equivalent of the Wizard of Oz -- done with smoke and mirrors, so that what you think you hear probably isn't there. black tape for a blue girl is a classic example: sensual melodies that are really samples manipulated and layered until they resemble music, then embellished with real instruments and vocals to complete the illusion." Spin Magazine
"Like Dead Can Dance, black tape for a blue girl dramatically flirts with symphonic decay. The music is brightly lit and subtly melodic; forlorn chords arch and bend, the drama giving way to auburn radiance. The reedy melodies are best heard behind whispers; lyrics are brief, flashed snapshots; passages of chamber orchestration are held together by electronic instrumentation, ambient drones and ethereal vocals." The Philadelphia City Paper
"With the release of As one aflame laid bare by desire, venerable Projekt Records act black tape for a blue girl is poised to benefit from the pop mainstream's growing interest in the goth-pop movement. The group's sound is associated with the style of such '80s-era acts as Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil. As one aflame is classic black tape, with lush instrumentation comprising synthesizers, live symphonic strings and acoustic guitars, coupled with ethereal vocals. The band's sound is almost new age but much darker and edgier. Over the years, black tape for a blue girl has become Projekt's best selling artist. Eric Musial of the Exclusive Co., a 10-store chain in Wisconsin, says that local goth fans are avidly looking forward to the band's new album. He notes that Exclusive usually sells out its initial order the first week." Billboard Magazine
"One of the main reasons goth is still as pale and healthy as ever is Sam Rosenthal, partly through his efforts as head of the Projekt label, but also through his band, black tape for a blue girl. For more than a decade now, Rosenthal and his revolving cast of helpers have been turning out a long series of immaculately crafted ethereal panoramas. Everyone involved would probably deny the analogy, but This Mortal Coil is a useful reference point, and not only because of black tape's status as a label-guru's cavalcade of musical whimsy. The two groups also share a gloomy chamber-music sensibility. black tape does a beautiful job of creating a lush, all-enveloping sound that's soothing yet brooding. 'Goth' may not be the right word since this is no acid-bath of torment and angst. This is more of a gentle wash, perfect for late-night contemplation or, um, making out." CMJ New Music Monthly
"While Alanis may wax about fellatio and Ms. Phair gleefully swears, few artists create music as sexually charged as Sam Rosenthal. The music of black tape for a blue girl centers almost exclusively around desire, longing and the entanglement of relationships. Black Tape has always tempered seduction with sadness and beauty, and the sound of their latest reflects this dichotomy. As one aflame is the band's most melodic work to date, intermingling the addition of Lisa Feuer's elegant and spry flute with Rosenthal's trademark waves of dark, haunting electronics. With the group garnering media attention like never before, black tape is slowly making the transition into the mainstream, where it is sure to leave those who though the Spice Girls sexy gasping for air." Cleveland Free Times
"black tape for a blue girl returns --- refined, elegant, gracefully exquisite. Lyricist/songwriter Sam Rosenthal creates an aural play in which voices and instruments are cast to portray his artistic vision. A lot of As one aflame is damn near brilliant in its artistic reach and dramatic scope. With otherworldly electronics, lone violin and weeping flute all draped around the solemn whispers of the vocals, black tape provides a most ghostly encounter. At times, black tape echoes the romantic indulgence of This Mortal Coil, with haunting female vocals and ornate neoclassicism juxtaposed against an ominous, frozen landscape of strings and keyboards; Rosenthal's art achieves both an eerie sonic calm and an intense degree of emotional extravagance. As one aflame can't be dismissed as a misguided attempt to invigorate the well-preserved corpse of the darkwave. This stuff is quite guided and very much alive." Magnet Magazine
"Clearly, labels like 'gothic,' 'death rock' and 'gloom' are more about the mood, the fashions and the feelings the music provides. Stretching the goth genre even further, black tape for a blue girl incorporate orchestral elegance with a New Age-ish spirituality and literary introspection. Their latest As one aflame laid bare by desire is a symphonic mix of poetic vocals and ethereal atmosphere. Yes, it's dark, but instead of wallowing spooky pretense, the band -- which features a flutist, violinist, acoustic guitar and keyboards -- focuses on instrumentation and conceptual themes. Far from depressing, they bring beauty and depth to a genre known more for sorrow and menace." LA Weekly
"This is the sound of a poet's mind bleeding ink. Press your ear to the paper and hear the erupting soul. Ashen-faced lovers who equate death with the soul-sapping pain of passion fill this minimalist recording while maintaining meaning for both the crushed velvet Goth and the saffron-robed yogina. The majority of the pieces play like musical philosophy texts, filled with stunning observations of still, quiet moments, as viewed by low clarinets, open-throated flutes, and spectral, waltzing oboes. A biblical city awakens to sand shifting with chromatically rising strings; tides and bass tones evoke a hermit's rock ledge; a synthesizer paces breath-steps, and strings open, shimmering wide, low water strokes." Lollipop Magazine
"What better way to spend Valentine's Day than listening to dark, death-obsessed, drenched chamber music? black tape for a blue girl tap into the same harsh but dreamy landscapes of early Cocteau Twins, before Liz Fraser got married and had kids." Philadelphia Weekly
"Credit must be given to black tape for a blue girl, who seem to have found the secret of eternal life. Formed in 1986, the band has released seven albums, and has been a veritable constant among what is at best a transient lot. Employing elements of folk and classical along with its ethereal melodies and complex theatrics, black tape refuses to get bogged down in the preternatural mush. Some of the imagery is there, to be sure, but Black Tape has always been relatively off-kilter, even to those who don't think 'Bela Lugosi's Dead.'" Fort Worth Weekly
"An intricate discourse on the nature of love set to haunting, melancholy melodies best defines the latest, and perhaps most accomplished, release from black tape for a blue girl. Complemented by strings and wind instruments, this soft, brooding, and beautiful music posseses a rare, regal quality." Illinois Entertainer, Chicago
"black tape for a blue girl's brand of evocative neo-Romanticism is perhaps at its zenith on this album. The group's blending of archaic musical styles with modern ambience and wind and string instruments with synths seems to have reached its full maturation after 12 years of development. Moving from anguish to serenity, black tape succesfully fashion a range of profound emotions into a vivid musical landscape." Keyboard Magazine
"black tape for a blue girl's is a hidden treasure of a band. Their sound is lush, full and beautiful; this is beauty with an edge, like Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. Recommended." San Francisco Chronicle
"Devotees of more upscale forms of bombast may scoff at goth (or 'Darkwave'), but there's little on black tape for a blue girl's Remnants of a deeper purity that's more lugubrious than a typical passage from Berlioz or Richard Strauss. Indeed, the 22-minute 'For you will burn your wings upon the sun' is very much the symphonic tone poem, all strainging strings and morose melody. And, since the group has neither a bassist nor a drummer, there are none of those annoying rhythms to irk the symphonic buff. Despite the violin, cello and harmonium, this quintet is equally indebted to the moody late-60's art-folk of Leonard Cohen and Pearls Before Swine." The Washington Post (classical reviewer)
"As on aflame is one of the most complete and well thought out CDS I have ever heard. It develops as an elaborate play of thoughts and feelings unfolding in delicate and deeply felt spires of transcendental thought. The emotional concepts pivot around lust and love... desire and attraction ... passion and hearache. Gone are the days when black tape relied so heavily on reverb and chrous effects. Used far more sparingly, the effects elicit comparisons between As on aflame and the finer works of This Mortal Coil. Even the CD booklet is breathtaking. Sam Rosenthal has indeed created a masterpiece, without a doubt this is the best independent label release of the year." Fright-X Magazine
"black tape is not easily pigeonholed: not quite ambient, not quite Goth, the band is more influenced by and shares synaptic aural connections with the batch of great, quiet bands on the 4AD label from the late '80s -- the Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, and Dead Can Dance -- than any of the recent batch of "Goth" bands in black. However black tape for a blue girl is much more layered musically that its 4AD predecessors. The band's songs are exuberantly melodic, often catastrophic and always rooted in neoclassical forms. Simply put, black tape for a blue girl is different from millions of doomy, gloomy copycats because the band does everything on a grandiose canvas, relishing theatrics, foreboding, loneliness and the constant search for a better existance. These are hardly unfamiliar themes for the genre black tape is lumped into, but they're more advanced that those covered by black tape's contemporaries. If you only see one "darkwave," "neoambient" or "goth" show this year, make it out for this one." The Riverfront Times, St. Louis
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