Library Tapes
A Summer Beneath the Trees

Our album of the week (21st November 2008)

Cover art for A Summer Beneath the Trees by Library Tapes Description: CD on Make Mine Music
Format: CD
Genre(s): Ambient
Label: Make Mine Music
Price:
£10.79
Availability: Sold out / currently unavailable. Sorry!

5Rating: 5
...according to our on 20 November 2008.

Library Tapes is back with his fourth album proper (I think.... I lose count sometimes) on Make Mine Music. The 3 previous albums on Kning Disk and Resonant have all gone now. Boo hoo. Hey I only caught on when I got lost in amidst his 2nd album on Resonant and ended up blagging a CDR of the 1st album from the Resonant folks as the debut had sold out at the time. Lovely it is too. So here's is brand new thing called A Summer Beneath The Trees. This one features Danny Norbury on cello and man of the moment (more like boy as he's only about 10) Peter Broderick playing loads of different things. If you're familiar with previous Library Tapes albums then this one will come as no surprise. It's lovely from the off and it continues down lovely street until it finishes and leaves you an emotional wreck on the curled up to a fetal ball in your garden. And you'll wonder how you got there too. Yes it's a moving melancholic album filled with misery, beauty. hope and joy all at the same time. I always find the strings and piano combo a moving one. It's by far my favourite sort of classical music as it just sounds so damned beatiful yet miserable at the same time. The piano at times sounds a bit like Harold Budd. Slow repetitive mantras which sound all distant like the microphone was in a different room. As ever lurking in the background are some weird electronic noises which creep around sinisterly behind the gorgeous instrumentation. Obvious comparisons to Sylvain Chauveau, Yann Tiersen and Max Richter still stand and if you fancy something a bit on the neo classical side this week then I totally rate this. Well lovely!! Phil x

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What their label says...

Library Tapes follow up the highly acclaimed Make Mine Music album Höstluft with the beautiful and atmospheric long player A Summer Beneath the Trees. A Summer Beneath the Trees steps away from the minimal sound of previous Library Tapes releases, with rich layers of sound and more varied instrumentation, and strings taking a more prominent role. Joining Library Tapes main man David Wenngren (piano, laptop and field recordings) are Peter Broderick (Bella Union, Type, Kning Disk) who adds violin, guitar, accordion, trumpet, celeste, viola and banjo on the six of the album’s nine tracks, and Danny Norbury (Static Caravan, Ono) who plays cello on three tracks. The trademark ageing clicks and glitches of earlier releases are largely absent, and there is a newfound warmth and depth to these recordings. The album moves Library Tapes further into the realm of modern classical and cinematic soundtracks, with the music bringing to mind Arvo Pärt, Michael Nyman and Max Richter. Based in Gothenburg in Sweden, David Wenngren has also released music under the name Forestflies and has extensively toured  with Sylvain Chauveau, Greg Haines.