Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Post-rock par excellence, 3 Oct 2008
I was originally given a copy of this by a friend with "progressive" taste in music (by that I don't mean a predisposition for songs about wizards and orcs). I primarily recall that the first time I heard it was late at night and I was very tired. I promptly fell asleep at some point during the initial listen of "For Carl Sagan". I woke up on the couch many hours later, fully-clothed and with the living room lights on, in a state of total bewilderment and confusion at the cacophany of noise emenating from the sound system - it seemed to be still playing the same song from earlier on! It turns out that the CD had been left on repeat and had co-incidentally rolled back to the same song...
A not entirely relevant anectode perhaps, but rings true with how this all-instrumental music works its insiduous magic; its almost best appreciated on a sub-conscious level.
For those fond of pidgeon-holing, and if you'll allow me a little simplistic conceit, the so-called "post-rock" genre could be imagined as a triangular plane, with "rock" in one corner and "modern classical" and "jazz" in the other two. If we were to map classic Post-rock albums onto this triangle, with Gastr Del Sol's "Camofleur" and Tortoise's "Millions now Living Will Never Die" tending towards the "jazz" end of the triangle, and GY!BE's "F#A#(infinity)" more over at the classical end, "From Bone to Satellite" probably resides further towards the "Rock" apex, alongside Mogwai's "Come on Die Young" and anything by Mono.
With a mere 5 tracks spread across a sprawling 70-plus minutes of music, Tarentel have clearly opted for "the longer the better" approach to song lengths. In a similar fashion to GY!BE, a number of the tracks are divided into various suites - each usually built around the repetition of a one or two interlocking motifs. Sedate opener "Steede Bonnet" could almost be described as a tribute to Pink Floyd's "Breathe", all clean, liquid guitar, heavy-yet-simple low-end and slow-building, deliberate drumming.
The segue into "When We Almost Killed Ourselves" is subtle and almost comforting, until the jarring burst into 3/4 rock (not altogether dissimilar to the likes of Mars Volta, although they came later) knocks you back in your seat, before settling back down into a gentle adagio. The highlight of the album is probably track 3 "Ursa Minor, Ursa Major", with its intricate 7/4 time, clockwork-esque guitar harmonics intro, gradually building into a euphoric, echoing rock explosion, before again settling down to a almost minimalist end section.
The other two tracks (including the aforementioned "For Carl Sagan")follow the same formula more or less, with the latter being particular drawn out - drone rock taken to its natural conclusion (think of Mogwai's "My Father, My King" for an aural reference).
With that in mind, its instructive to note that after releasing this album in 1998, arguably nearing the scene's zenith, the band gradually altered and mutated their sound into something altogether different, as evidenced by their most recent long player "Ghetto Beats On the Surface of the Sun". In its time, this was probably the closest definition to perfect post-rock you're likely to find on any record. Recommended.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Almost, but not quite., 2 Jul 2001
Tarentel don't just rock, they drone-post-rock! Or something. Well anyway, they're yet another up-and-coming addition to this (sadly) oft-maligned genre. We're glad you're here lads, but please, concentrate on the drone/post bit - because that's what you're good at, more on which in a moment.Releases like their CDEP, Looking For Things - Searching For Things, and the sublime Two Sides Of Myself single (the b-side being a wonderful take on Satie-influenced Fixed:Context-and afterwards Labradford), are all rather stunning pieces of drone-postage that clicked with me on first listen. So really, I wasn't prepared for From Bone... Starting with the very chilled Steede Bonnet, we're in standard Tarantel territory (repetitive acoustic and/or elec-guitar-led dronage with stunning percussion and minimal electronic ambience), and things are going fine. But come to When We Almost Killed Ourselves... a few minutes in things go awry. You see, throughout the whole LP are these heavy sections that turn me right off, sounding like grungy indie / alternative "stuff" and... well, this kills the record for me. Tarentel have shown on other releases that they can keep themselves cool and collected, creating softer tracks that really click with me, but the distinctly "alternative-linkin/feeder-ish" sound that appears here really ruins things. Personal taste of course, but still incredibly annoying. Here's hoping their forthcoming Order Of Things LP will cement them as pretenders to the post/drone crown. For now, I'm not ready to recommend them outright.
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