thirty seven: Library Tapes

Somewhere along the road of blog I lost an entry. You won't tell anyone though.

Library Tapes, where have you been all my life? This is the music of David Wenngren, a magical man from Sweden.

His most recent offering to the musical world is A Summer Beneath the Trees. Which breathes deeply and echoes ideas more fully developed than Wenngren has ever hazarded. Songs like The Rivers Turned To Cobblesto sound as if they've grown to fill the shape of a music hall. Melodies heighten and stretch as the song progresses further and further, it's like something from a dream.

Wenngren's music still retains a degree of melancholy present in previous albums Fragment and Feelings For Something Lost. Wenngren's music never becomes wholely major key and thus plays things in slow motion. A look, a smile, a movement all transform into something long passed when played to Library Tapes.

An example of this transformation is Fragment VIII from the album Fragment. The delicate piano repeats itself, giving the track a feeling of continuity as the backgrounded strings meander along to the melodies. The first track on the album, Fragment I (no kidding), also opens the record in this soft, slow format. The album is like a divine, luxurious lullaby.

In a turn of the extraordinary I am seeing Library Tapes with Portico Quartet on the 26th of November, and am anticipating to witness how he turns his music around into the live.

Listen to The Rivers Turned To Cobblesto here.