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SASS, SYNTHS AND GROOVE!

A short mix I made of some of my favourite 80′s records, both rare and well known songs, perfect for tipsy summer dancing MTX (link below)

https://www.mixcloud.com/RADIOUNICORN/sass-synths-and-groove-mixed-by-alec/

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The new Heart Model ep is a drone folk masterpiece! You can listen to it or buy it from Bandcamp.

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A Few Words With Tienhaara; A Treader Of Her Own Path, At Home Where The Roads Fork

Tienhaara is the musical moniker of the previously unpublished Finnish singer-songwriter Hilla Väyrynen. Mythical Tapes is glad to offer a wider audience an opportunity to discover her music: a new exclusive song will be featured on the forthcoming Mythical Tapes vol. III compilation. To celebrate the occasion we asked Tienhaara a few questions.

MT: So how has your musical journey been? Have you played in bands before Tienhaara or how did you start making music?

T: I've always been a musical hermit. In my childhood I used to be a member in both an orchestra and a choir. After that I was playing cover songs by myself for recreation. Only after years of stealthy solitary playing I started to play gigs on an irregular basis.

I wrote my first song six years ago when I was staying in Porto, Portugal for an internship. I spent the evenings in my bedroom strumming on the guitar and putting together sentences that I had written down during the day. Perhaps it was the new and strange environment that conferred me with the right distance to my mother tongue and challenge my normal mindset. To this day I still remember how crazy and liberating, almost anarchic, it felt to start writing songs from my own perspective.

MT: You have made music for years. If I remember correctly, at first you were performing under your own name. Since when did you start using the name Tienhaara (english: 'fork in the road')? Was it only a cosmetic choice or were there other reasons behind the change, changes in the musical direction for example?

T: There were a few reasons: my real name didn't feel right for the purpose, and I felt I needed a singer-songwriter alter ego, like a mask from behind which it would be easier to do and say what I wanted. To put it in other words I wanted to protect the real me and the poet me by keeping them separate.

These days Tienhaara is a title for the songs I'm writing solo. When I'm writing for the theatre I use my own name. Tienhaara is also my grandmother's maiden name, so it is both personal and distant enough. I also like the meaning of it: it's a metaphor of pausing upon a contradiction. It fits on what I'm trying to say with my songs.

MT: Most of your songs are built on clear and uncomplicated elements: your strong voice and the accompanying instrument (piano or acoustic guitar). Do you play any other instruments and do you have any plans to bring in other musicians and/or instruments?

T: I like simplicity, because it leaves the most room for the song and the text itself. At the moment I don't see myself introducing many new elements to my music. In recent times I have been toying with computers when writing for theatre, so it is possible that Tienhaara will develop a more electronic sound at some point.

My favourite instrument in the whole world is the human voice. I wrote the music for a stage play 4.48 Psychosis (by Sarah Kane) last year. My idea for the musical style was 'a choir of one single woman'. To achieve that I was layering my own voice. I think that is an idea I will make use of as Tienhaara too.

MT: What kind of musical influences do you have? Where do the lyrics come from? Leonard Cohen must be an important influence for you - at least you have published a version of his 'Master song' on your Soundcloud page. Tell us a bit more about this relationship.

T: My musical influences come mostly from good old ballads and folk, and I think the most important of them for me is Leonard Cohen.

When I was 16 I found Leonard Cohen's album 'I'm your man' in my parents' tape collection. From that moment on I started to grow into his poems and music. I was devouring and studying them. The raw honesty, the universal human conflicts and the amazing poetic pictures offered years' worth of new food for thought but also soothing familiarity. Lyric emphasising, repetitive, simple and beautiful melodies and chord progressions remind me of a smoothly rocking soft cradle. I haven't received proper musical teaching since childhood but I have tried to learn everything I can from Leonard Cohen. It is unavoidable that the great musical love I have for him is audible in everything I do.

After Cohen the greatest inspiration for me is Nico. I admire her immersive and irreverent musical landscape. Her music feels like a home in another universe.

I also enjoy the process of translating lyrics a lot. It is similar to solving a Rubik's cube: some of the rotating axises are the meaning of words, the number of syllables, the rhymes, the phonetic appearance, the mood and I think most interestingly the directly untranslatable word plays. I really got excited about the possibilities of translation after hearing (the Finnish artist) Hector's version of Cohen's Suzanne. I think it is amazing because it manages to be a song of its own but also to respect the original at the same time. It manages to convey something essential. That is something I aim to achieve myself.

I have different methods for writing lyrics. Typically I write pages full of uncensored subconscious stream around one or two topics or things. The thing can be a situation, a colour or a historical figure for example. Then I circle sentences and phrases that I want to use which I then edit to have them fit better in the song. I love arranging the text material in this way – it is similar to a puzzle where the surrounding pieces hint at what the neighbouring piece will be like.

My other influences come from all around the place. One can become impressed in so many ways. It either is or isn't audible in my music but I'm really inspired by the story telling on Jacques Brel, Tchaikovsky's romantic melodies, Philip Glass' repetition, harmonies by Simon and Garfunkel, Serge Gainsbourg's insolent intertextuality, the beats and moods of Grimes, the looping of Dirty Beaches, and Frida Hyvönen's lovely, laconic subjectivity. Among heaps of different one hit wonders.

MT: Another song on your Soundcloud page is a hybrid version of Lee Hazlewood's tune for the song Summer Wine and David Bowie's lyric for Space Oddity. Would you like to say something about the idea and process behind the song?

T: Ha ha, I got the idea for the song when I was working. I was scanning old photographs in a museum and when I'm working on a monotone task it sometimes happens that I start to hum all kinds of nonsense. I don't know why, but for some reason "this is ground control for Major Tom" popped into my mind in Summer Wine's melody. That's where I got the idea from. After a bit of trial and error the lyrics for Space Oddity seemed work with the melody. As far as I remember I finished the song the same day, when I was still digitising the photos. Luckily it was a Friday because I had the chance to arrange and record the song soon. And I got the wine reference for the end of the song. That was pleasing, and the whole thing was unusually quickly done.

MT: You have mostly released material on the internet a few songs at a time. The next release will most probably be on the new Mythical Tapes-compilation. What kind of plans have you got for the future as new releases are concerned? Are there any plans for a longer release or are you planning to continue releasing in smaller quantities? And why?

T: I have plans for a longer whole, but I haven't yet decided when to release it. I have a relatively big batch of songs ready to be recorded. Arranging the songs to a uniform whole is something that requires a lot of time and focus.

I'm really at my best when writing the songs, but managing myself doesn't come naturally. Releasing a track or two every now and then suits me and that is also one way I see myself releasing my music in the future. I want to keep the threshold of releasing low.

One thing to think about is the change in the bigger picture, how the release and distribution of music has changed in recent years. I'm not really sure what is the best medium for my music. Maybe I should release on Mini Disc after all…

MT: Earlier you mentioned you're a musical hermit. What kind of relationship do you have with playing live? As far as I understand you have kept a low profile on that front lately? How about the future?

T: It has been quiet. I have been really busy with other work and projects for more than a year now, so playing solo gigs was the first thing I had to sacrifice. I'm not the most eager live performer in the world. Past experiences have been mostly positive and encounters with the audience have been inspiring for both parties, but I feel performing irregularly would be too time and energy consuming because there is no chance to develop a routine.

Performing is both distressing and sweet at the same time, and I intend to keep doing it in the future as well but only after I have a tape to sell. I think the best situation for listening my music is alone, late at night, on headphones maybe when one is walking home.

I wish I had the opportunity to play in a cathedral some day though.

For Tienhaara's Soundcloud page go to: https://soundcloud.com/tienhaara

Interview and translation by Mikko Virmajoki

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The Club Unicorn E.P. Is Finally Available For Download (Cassette Coming Summer 2016)

About 6 years ago I was living in Brighton and studying for my BA in music production. At the time I was performing with hard-core punk and no-wave bands and had never really entertained the idea of writing or performing electronic music, although I was DJing a lot of 80′s dance music like Italo disco and Boogie, which was an obvious influence on the Club Unicorn sound. 

It all changed after I started taking piano lessons and going to synthesis lectures. I bought a Yamaha DX7 and Roland TR-505 and would get together with my friends and bandmates, making sounds, beats and writing lyrics.

The four songs on the E.P. are the only tracks we completed together, it was a very fun and enjoyable process that brings back a lot of good memories from a very important cross-road in my musical life.

You can listen to the whole E.P. on Youtube or download it from the Mythical Tapes Bandcamp page.

Musicians; Alex Jones, Chris & Trudy Percival, Dan Ridgway, Alec Sibbald and Tabrez Visram.

Cover Art by Veera Nykanen

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Lola Kumtus Cassette L.P.

Our friends and collaborators Lola Kumtus recently released their own full length album called Mirror Use. it’s a limited edition cassette with digital downloads available from their Bandcamp page.

Lola Kumtus are a Helsinki based two piece that create brutally minimal, up-tempo synth-punk with stark lyricism that deals with subjects ranging from sexuality to mental health.

Here is the album’s opening song “Guidelines”.

MTX

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from Smash Hits magazine, August 1981

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Standing statue of Gudea, circa 2450 B.C

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First draft of the cover for the Mythical Tapes Vol.III compilation

by Dave Pearce

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Stamp collection.

artists unknown

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King Arthur by Harry Theaker

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An example of the style of garden where much of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night would have taken place. 

artist unknown

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The entire Mythical Tapes discography is available digitally for your listening pleasure, pay what you want for downloads.

New digital and cassette releases coming soon!

MTX

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Ogata Kenzan, Brother Korin - Cherry and Spring Herbs 

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I was in St Ives, Cambs recently visiting family and managed to get some time to go looking in the charity shops. I found this postcard for 10 pence, it had a strange message written on the back but had never been posted. I have never visited New York and I have no connection to the city but I loved the lurid colours in this image, it reminds me of the Neo-Tokyo skyline from the film Akira.

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by Doreen Roberts from the book Stories of Ancient Greece

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The Lunar Tropics EP

Back in 2011 Lunar Tropics, a one man Brighton based synth project, self released The Lunar Tropics EP. Essentially a synth-wave outfit that romanticised the sound and instruments of the 80s but with a stark minimalism and sadness emanating through layers of FM synthesis. Dubbed “coastal-synth” for its ponderous ocean gazing mood, worthy of many 80′s downcast montage sequences. Now for your listening pleasure we are very proud to present The Lunar Tropics EP remastered and available to download.

https://mythicaltapes.bandcamp.com/album/the-lunar-tropics-ep

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A Sci-Fi Overdose In The Musical Kitchenette With Winged Pegasus.

The Winged Pegasus by Winged Pegasus is the first album published by a single group through Mythical Tapes. It is the project of UK based musician and producer Chris Percival with co-writing and production duties by Daniel Ridgway also featuring percussionist Trudy Percival.

The album is a wonderfully capricious listening experience, it manages to straddle several emotive themes using only synthetic and sometimes incredibly abrasive sounds.

Listening to the album from beginning to end evinces the real wisdom behind the thought and execution of the work, harsh soundscapes mixed with ambient electronica but each individual composition exhibits deeper qualities than vague genre descriptions.

With this album there is a real sense of desperation, sadness, anxiety and disquiet, it presents itself like a conceptual album or soundtrack in the way that it maintains this theme throughout, whilst concurrently exploring many different stylistic traits and compositional qualities.

The Winged Pegasus album artwork

The song Inside The Steel Nursery Pt2 is a fine example of how Winged Pegasus can work within the criteria of genres such as post-dubstep but securing it well amongst their own unique style by incorporating ambient industrialism and dolorous ritualistic chanting/sighing.

This leads into Contractions:Struggle:Hybrid Awakening a song that sounds like it could've been composed by Ornette Coleman and performed by Throbbing Gristle.

It is qualities such as this that has greatly endeared me to Winged Pegasus. There are many artists working within the noise and experimental genres that unleash consistent walls of distorted sound to the point of exhaustion and sometimes indifference, Winged Pegasus manages to discipline the bestial abrasive noise in much the same way a free-jazz musician would border between insanity and beauty, enabling a delicately orchestrated semblance to the always lurking harsh cacophony. I spoke to Chris to find out a little bit more about the Winged Pegasus project.

Mythical Tapes - Hello Chris. First of all, tell me when and why you started creating music?


Chris - I officially started creating music about 16 years ago, playing guitar in a punk band. Shortly after that I started trying to write classical music on midi score-writing software Sibelius. I played guitar in a band because it was more interesting than college, and I started trying to compose because it was more interesting than playing guitar in a band.

MT - Punk and classical, so you started at both ends of the spectrum! You play guitar, what other instruments do you play?


C - I primarily play guitar and bass, though I dabble in keyboard and drums. I even sort of sing now.


MT -What are your thoughts on understanding theory and the ability to play instruments or sing, do you think it's important anymore?

C - There are loads of ways to go about making and understanding music, each with pros and cons. Mastering an instrument can be great but also in some cases seems limiting - although as I have never really mastered any instrument, that could just be sour grapes talking. Children can make music just by banging pots and pans and stuff. I once worked with a group of seven year olds to help them create a short composition mostly consisting of them banging stuff against other stuff. To me, it sounded better than what most trained musicians come up with. And the kids in the group with the most musical experience were not the most creative ones. Musical knowledge can be extremely useful though, I don't want to knock it too much, but it is no substitute for feel and a good ear.


MT - It seems you have quite a diverse musical history, what other projects have been involved with before now? 


C - After mucking around in punk bands and on Sibelius, I studied music at university, graduating in 2006. I specialised in experimental composition and learned different ways of approaching sound, writing scores and so on. When I left I moved to Brighton and started mucking around in bands again. At the same time, I started using recording software at home - first Pro-tools then Logic, not only for recording bands but for starting to make electronic music. I collaborated with lots of musicians in Brighton, both in bands and in studios, and widened my experience by playing bass for a pop act, acoustic guitar and vocals in a bluegrass band, and jazz-flavoured cheese in a function band. Since then I have joined a noise-rock band, and have been writing electronic music as Winged Pegasus.


MT – I assume you have a very diverse selection of musicians that have influenced or inspired your work?

C - I could draw up a long and pretentious list of famous avant-garde musicians and bearded hipster types, but I won't. I dont really know what influences me, but certainly collaboration does. I've learned more from and been more inspired through jamming, writing and recording with others than I have from listening to stuff.

MT - Yea agree, boring question but interesting answer. What other artforms or artists influence your sound?


C - Well you can see from the titles of the Winged Pegasus tunes that I like sci-fi, and I'm talking books here, not Batman films or comic books or whatever. Definitely Isaac Asimov stories have made an impression, and many other writers from SF's golden age, through people like Ballard, up to contemporary writers like China Miéville. All that stuff goes in to my brain and comes out as music I think, though I have no idea what the process is there. It could just be that whooshy electronic noise and bleeps have an irrevocable sci-fi bent.


MT - Yea I do get the feeling that the album could be the soundtrack to a  nightmarish sci-fi horror film. Do you intend to perform any of the album live?


C - I have no current plans to perform live, but it is certainly not off the agenda.


MT -  How would you perform live, as a band with musicians or own your own with a laptop or both?

C - I’d draft in a couple of other musicians, I wouldn't want too much backing track. Several of the tunes on the album are recorded live in my flat, me on electronics and Trudy on drums, so that sort of thing would be the starting point for live shows I think.


Winged Pegasus aka Chris Percival

MT – Do you do most of your work at home?


C - The tunes on this album were mostly recorded in my home studio and at my mate Dan's home studio. Like most penniless musicians, out studios are pretty much integrated into our living space, kind of musical kitchenettes. If my music smells like clothes being dried and pizza cooking, you now know why. But life and music shouldn't really be separated anyway if you ask me, so I'm down with that.


MT - Yes I guess home is where the best source material is and it's cheap! Was the album written as an album with a consistent theme or was it more of a compilation of different compositions that you were working on?


C - I sort of wrote individual pieces in various ways, then selected, compiled, edited and adjusted them till they made a coherent album, hopefully. The Sci Fi theme was a little story that popped up in my head while listening back to them, and helped me decide what went where. I initially planned to have someone narrate a version of that story over the music, but it soon became apparent that the tunes worked better on their own. Instead I used the titles to suggest a story ark.


MT – Nice, maybe somebody could work backwards and make a film of the song titles! What are the future plans for Winged Pegasus?


C - Well I have not worked on anything since I completed the album a few weeks ago. But I have plans. Again, I want to focus on collaboration but even more so. I play in a noise-rock band called D:Roid, so I









 would like to get them involved, jam out some live stuff, and then start editing and overdubbing, see where that takes me...

MT – Sounds wonderful, keep us updated and thanks for your time.

You can listen to Chris’ sludge/doom/noise/metal band D:Roid and download their EP ‘Terror From Above’ here.

words by A.K.S