TARENTEL

Released in 07, this double disc album actually dates from 04-05, this superbly-titled (a bit misleading intentionally to trick rappers into buying it) is certainly once again proving that Tarentel is on the forefront of Post Rock, running alongside Tortoise, light years ahead of the rest of the pack, the GYBE! imitators. Actually these two groups are so far away from their peers, that calling them Post Rock has become reductive and misleading: indeed Tort and Tare have almost invented the style by themselves in the mid-90's, but the huge production of EITS or Mogwai and even Sigur Ros trying for that Constellation Record label sound since has rendered the Post Rock image precisely that of Constellation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming it on the Montreal-based label, but well on the hundreds of imitators that have copied that sound since.

The two disc are relatively similar (the second being a little less "melodic" or a little more dissonant), carrying us through a bunch of sound collages and ambiances that often borders the nightmarish rather than the erotic wet dream. Musically we are somewhere between 03's stupendous We Move through Weather and 05's Big Black Square and Paper White, but unlike these releases, we're faced with a bunch of tracks (10 on the first and 13 on the second disc) on both albums rather than long tracks, but generally the musical propos is roughly the same as those albums nearing it. A continuous tapestry of sounds (the tracks are melted into each other) that sometimes is close to making perfect sense and has an eerie beauty, despite its gloom and doom; and at others sounds like a volcano in eruption its spewing loud blobs of lava and spilling its bile-like magma into your living room. Early Tangerine Dream like Zeit, Atem, Phaedra and Alpha Centauri soundscapes are not far away from this Tarentel release

As usual, and like most Tarentel albums, Ghetto Beats is simply not for the faint-hearted or those Post Rockers looking for their usual stuff. On the whole, unless a bit masochistic I don't think you'll be playing both discs in one sitting and once the novelty worn off, this type of album will probably not find regular rotation and eventually get pushed to a corner of the shelves where gathering dust will be its main occupation until you'll remember it and play it once and starting the vicious circle again. But it's definitely worth an ear.

The album starts with "Steede Bonnet" a piece that reminds me the first track in the great "Mi media Naranja" of Labraford. With a rare old west sound, like music for a Sergios Leone movie or something. This track starts slowly, building a melody until the 9 min mark aprox. ( The typical Crescendo in post rock, but very well done).

Then we have "When We Almost Killed Ourselves", That is more aggressive and the crescendos are more intense. It starts very ethereal and suddenly explodes in a very intense progression that leads again in to another soundscape build up, with clean guitars, calm percussions and some keyboards in the background; very beautiful crescendo.

Next comes "Ursa Minor, Ursa Major", and excellent piece. The crescendo its magnificent. It builds up till the 7 min mark. And then the Euphoria starts, its really a very powerful piece (but not heavy at all); then it gets quiet with more clean guitars and great drumming. This track worth the whole album. But there's more.

Next "For Carl Sagan", That speaks for itself. A tribute for the famous astronomer. The piece its very ethereal and spacey, obvious. And it get very dense, could've been shorter , but its 20 min long and you have to be very alert for the changes and little crescendos to get the whole idea behind this giant epic. (Overall good). And Finally "Strange Attractors". In the same line it begins with a repetitive melody that grows until it starts again with a little variation, then a little experimentation and suddenly explodes with great drumming and some distorted guitar but very good Implemented. The track slow down with some spacey keyboards and finally finish almost in silent.

The experience with This album its quite exciting, it will please all the post rock fans and also every proghead will find some very interesting stuff here, so give it a try. Overall 4 stars. Excellent addition to any post rock/ experimental/Krautrock/space prog Collection.

Bamba, Celaya, Gto. México.

Sometimes, the music of this lone (and I suppose title track) number IS actually fairly interesting, but this is rather rare. We have to wait for the 13-min mark to hear some real evolution in the arrival of drums and the track slowly evolving to a more menacing atmosphere, but soon the drums come to a fairly high volume, which in the long run becomes slightly unpleasant. With their music remaining relatively uneventful, one can clearly see that their inspiration more or less directly point to Zeit-era Tangerine Dream (with added drums) and Eno's more gloomy works.

I would strongly suggest prospective fans to check out Tatentel's earlier releases, because this one is really aimed at hardcore fans. And from this review, you might have understood, that I had stopped being one a while ago.

As for the music here, we get a rather typical and average instrumental post rock (between GYBE! and Mogwai and early Zeit-era Tangerine Dream) album, which draws its best shot on the first track, the longer Isalais Straight. However, by the second track, the EP is sinking into a repeated formula that will last until the music stops. Dominated again by the drums (not mixed as loud as on other releases), the very ambient music borders on a sort of minimalism (but maybe not in the musical way generally understood) that borders on the stingy; but the music is just about strongly reminiscent of Big Black Square, which was released the same year as this one.

Actually, the relative shortness of the disc might just be it best ally. I would not recommend starting out with this record.

While their previous releases had strongly and patiently build up a sound, Tarentel was having trouble really making a name for itself the way GYBE! and other EITS or Mogwai would. This 56 minutes record is one of their more interesting releases and one of my fave. The artwork is the first of their two release presenting vines climbing up a wall, but this album is vastly different than the later EP.

Not that this record is particularly groundbreaking and enthralling, but it has a nice feeling of unity without boring the listener as is unfortunately too often the case with many post rock groups. Particularly delicious is the Popol Vuh second track with the delicious interplay between the cello and the string synth, before a great bass is taking over. Another rather rare occurrence (considering their whole career) is the fact that the album has some singing (very melancholic and peaceful as you'd expect) on Death In The Mind Of The Living, not unlike the Sigur Ros voice, but definitely less peculiar and not far from what 70's folk rock had to offer. Not everything is perfect on the album and the closing track is the shher proof of it? It simply last too long and vastly overstays its welcome.

Clearly this album along with FBTS and WMTW is one of those that make Tarentel one of the leading artistes in spite of a lack of recognition from the public. Not quite as essential as those other two albums I mentioned just above, but still worth a spin if you are only a casual post rock fan.

Out of all of Tarentel's records (the ones I heard anyway), this one might just be the only one that justifies their reputation of being influenced by Floyd, and much of it has to do with the grandiose leadoff track Steede Bonnet. With the almost violent We Almost Killed Ourselves, the album soon plunges in a more traditional post rock, but one that was definitely still groundbreaking back then. Ursa Major is the perfect follow-up but would've gained from being more concise. For Carl Sagan is a more reflective and repetitive number, which might have been a few minutes shorter for its own good. Strange Attractors is the great closer starting out on a slow crescendo, but suddenly dropping to an intimate climate then almost a full stop, lovingly staying alive through weak percussions than all a sudden exploding with an unsuspected violence, narrowingly escaping auto-implosion on a couple occasion before finding itself drifting/space-trucking outside of the Milky Way until its slow death.

Retrospectively, this is probably not the most inventive album of Tarentel, but certainly the one that gave them enough confidence to soldier on to make other beauties such as We Move Through Weather. A fitting intro to Tarentel, this might be more accessible than their newer albums, but it is quite less obtuse as well, even ifs extreme length (a whopping 74 minutes) is not its best asset.

The San Fran based Tarentel is, by the time of this release, one of the mainstays of the post rock movement but also one of the more consistent quality-minded group. They may be also the second most innovative band in the genre after Tortoise.

This album is one real treat to the adventurous proghead and in some respect is a proud successor of Krautrock masterpieces in the mould of early Tangerine Dream, Cluster and Popol Vuh (before their more esoteric phase). Musically we are a far cry from another great album of theirs, From Bone To Satellite, which was much more conventional in the post-rock genre and stuck more closely to GYBE! and added a Floyd touch also. The music here is more in the spirit of Tortoise (experimental explorations) and man, do they ever achieve a stunning oeuvre with this album. The least we can say is that Tarentel was not afraid to use samples and modify sounds enough to have the humour to call some instruments Clariphone Flubaphone or Hydrophone. There are moments that also make me think of Cul De Sac who was also heavily Krautrock influenced but turned lately to post rock and sound a bit similar to this album.

With such a stupendous album, Tarentel really proves that they are still the brightest hope of Post-rock and are still dishing superbly inventive albums when other tenors have long run out of steam or are simply duplicating their formula. A real must for any proghead who really want to discover what Post Rock is all about!!!