Library Tapes has his tour CD Sketches re-packaged and properly made available to you the general unassuming public. I bet you're all well made up. Well you should be. On this particular nugget the Tapes teams up with fellow cello miserabalist Danny Norbury to make some of the saddest, most lush sounding neo-classical gear you'll hear this side of the Pennines. It's pretty short, clocking in at 25 minutes but that works quite nicely in its favour as you're left wanting more and so few records do that these days. Piano and cello largely make up the audio with some electronic tinklings/ field recordings making the other noises. Over the 11 tracks you're treated to some beautifully sparse well crafted music which will really appeal to those into the more sombre end of neo classical. If you're into Dakota Suite, Sylvain Chauveau etc then I'm pretty sure you're gonna love this. Comes in a well sexy glossy card thing as well on the brand new Home Normal label, whose next album is by Celer (which is tops) and there's forthcoming ones from Danny Norbury & The Boats. Deffo gonna be a label to watch out for!!
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Sound clips for Sketches by Library Tapes: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Home Normal, home n001, £6.99.
Direct whilst elusive, sumptuous and austere, precise yet expansive.
David Wenngren’s Library Tapes is an amalgam of beautifully juxtoposed expressions and deftly described phrases. Found sounds and field recordings crackle and smoulder as Danny Norbury’s cello teases out a foundation for fragile piano melodies. While those passages so gentle and elegant form the spine of David’s sound, its the sense of patience - of compositional balance which lifts his work to the stratosphere.
These are 11 windows to a world of timeless suspension, of grace and of glorious decay.’
