Tape Loop Orchestra - Onde Sinusoi​̈​dale Et Bande Magne​́​tique (2023)

Extremely happy to say that next up in the quiet details series is the wonderful Andrew Hargreaves, here as Tape Loop Orchestra.

Andrew is a musician of many talents, producing work across a diverse range of genres, all to wide acclaim. From industrial explorations as Beppu, to ambient and experimental work under his own name, to being a founding member of The Boats (along with Craig Tattersall then later Danny Norbury) and, in maybe his most well known solo guise, Tape Loop Orchestra. Recently he’s also had fantastic success making beautiful left-field pop with his band The Mistys.
He also co-ran Lacies Records, has appeared on many hugely respected labels and self-releases much of his work.

Here, as TLO we find Andrew at his most minimal and entrancing. Using a stripped back set-up of a test tone generator, tape machines and fx, he layers sustained oscillations and allows them to weave themselves together, creating something entirely new in the process.

Carefully chosen tunings of the sine drones allow acoustic evolution when stacked on each other, organically creating new rhythms and harmonic structures, which arise and then disappear into the textual ether as subtly as they came.
Tape and saturation play a huge part in adding a deeply three-dimensional element to the album, as the entire soundstage is engulfed with everything from the most subsonic frequencies - endlessly vast bass - to a delicate and constantly moving haze of higher harmonics, the warmest hiss and perfectly judged reverb and tape delay.

Sometimes dropping to near silence and then emerging again, there’s a reminiscence of the original masters working in the field of minimalism and drone, taking the ideas forward and letting them grow naturally.

It was made after his previous work “Drones in The Air”, and in this own words:

“Both Onde Sinusoïdale Et Bande Magnétique and Drones In The Air share a similar starting point but then diverge with the different tuning methods and sonic space. Both employ long sustained notes built up in overlapping motions to reveal hidden sounds, Onde is more restrained and focuses the disintegration of the sound from the repeated copying process and is generally more quiet.”

“The equipment used for this album was: Kikusui Model 4188 RC Oscillator, Sony TC-520CS, Sony TCS-580V, Watkins Copicat, Lexicon MPX-100 and Ableton Live.”

This is a stunning piece of work and fitting addition to the series - huge thanks to Andrew for letting us share it with you.

The artwork was made as always influenced by the music and idea behind the album - originating from a picture of the tone generator, this was then collaged and captured using analogue photography. The resulting images were manipulated by hand and in various ways to arrive at the final artwork.