Just as 2020 begins to finally wind down and the music business pumps out pop froth and supermarket shelf greatest hits, Sunday Records and Kocliko throw us a lifeline with this finely polished jewel of an e.p. from Spain’s Lost Tapes.
Coolly artful, The Tapes (as I’m sure absolutely no one calls them) seem to be all about capturing and soundtracking those small moments lost in time but forever replaying in your subconscious memory, fleeting glances across an empty room, missed communication, lost opportunities, or maybe I’m projecting…
The dreamlike Brilliance of a Language coasts in on eastern flavoured synthesised strings and manages to walk the line between comfort and unease while LT sing of a mystery protagonist who waits and waits as the hours pass, like some frozen figure in an Edward Hopper painting.
When I saw the track listing I thought it would be great if Over You was a Roxy Music cover and… it is. Full marks for choosing a song from later, less cool but still great, Roxy Music, when the stoic melancholy of the sad lover had seeped into everything Ferry touched.
Sounding at first like an indie pop version of Suicide’s Dream Baby Dream, complete with chugging rhythm box and Farfisa flavoured synth tones, Lost Tapes successfully locate the wistful heart of Over You and deliver an aural sigh of bittersweet ennui. By this point Bryan had distilled his lyrics to the bare bones of existential doubt, so no surprise to find an opening line that whispers, ‘Oh baby this is nowhere.‘ That it fits in seamlessly and doesn’t overshadow their own songs speaks volumes.
But this is an e.p, so there’s more; The Attraction of the Opposites glides through the ether on a delicious mix of crystalline synths and discrete jangle, gently probing bass dipping in and out. A delicately devastating song that circles through your mind, ebbing and flowing across six and a half minutes that feel over in a flash. How often can you say that?
“There is beauty here for those who want it and, as a bonus, a sly tip-off in the direction of the ‘greatest writer you’ve never read“, James Salter.
Once again, music that opens doors to experience. Quoting Salter EP releases on December 4th.