Send "Tapes 'n Tapes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 You're forgiven for forgetting Tapes 'n Tapes. In 2005, the unknown Minnesota quartet self-released its self-produced, 41-minute indie rock romp, The Loon. A little Pavement, a little Pixes, and a lot of hooks, The Loon was bright-eyed and charming enough to overcome its retread tendencies. Critical buzz built for the band like a brushfire; by the time the record industry convened in Texas for South by Southwest in March 2006, one assumed Tapes 'n Tapes were the next Great American Rock Band.They did their part in Austin, playing nine shows in four days and earning a record contract. XL Recordings re-released The Loon a few months later and sent the band into the studio with Dave Fridmann, the producer behind successes from Mogwai, Mercury Rev, and the Flaming Lips and, more relevantly, failures by more than a dozen young indie rock bands. The result, Walk It Off, is another Fridmann folly. Hookless, clumsy, and needlessly aggressive, the band's second album met a deluge of critical derision and sold far fewer copies than its predecessor. Tapes 'n Tapes are no longer on XL Recordings. Outside, the band's third album, again finds Tapes 'n Tapes not only self-releasing and self-producing but redoubling their efforts at indie rock homage. The melodies and the influences are more defined, as are the poses; Outside is a fine but ultimately feckless return to form, an attempt to rebuild The Loon's simple charms. Tapes 'n Tapes have always been a serviceable and studied indie rock band. Technically, they've never been as crisp or as confident as they are on Outside. Frontman Josh Grier is a fine guitarist, as comfortable with blitzing through distorted hazes as he is swiveling through an upbeat swing. He's even broadened his palette as a singer, a chameleon with a big record collection. Drummer Jeremy Hanson is similarly elastic, as capable of the rock wallop of "Nightfall" as he is the graceful sway of "People You Know". Horns, keys, and bass offer ballast and texture, rounding the band's basic sound with unexpected flourishes....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Tapes 'n Tapes released their debut album in 2006, at a time when the music press had finally come to terms with the star-making power of the online hype machine, when every blogger and upstart music mag was looking to pimp the next Strokes or Arcade Fire. It was, in hindsight, a very good time to be a little known Minneapolis foursome with a facility for indie-rock pastiche. And I don't mean to imply that Tapes 'n Tapes simply got the hype while the hype was good: Listening to The Loon, you got the impression that these guys had spent much of their adolescence listening to the same indie records, learning Pavement riffs, and deciphering Black Francis's cryptic tirades as you did. They weren't just hip, they were relatable. Loveable, even. Now it's 2011, and it's not just that the T-'n-T house blend has grown more predictable (you know from the way "The Saddest of All Keys" begins as a plodding dirge what kind of squalling finale is headed your way), it's the more nagging suspicion that Tapes 'n Tapes is still worshiping Steven Malkmus and faithfully awaiting the return of Jeff Mangum while every other indie band that's three albums deep has either moved on or folded in. On the one hand, bands like Arcade Fire have embraced the classic rock of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, Sufjan Steven has embraced the synthesizer, and even the misfits in Deerhunter have started writing songs with choruses. On the other hand, does anyone even care what the Decemberists or Wolf Parade are doing these days? Does anyone still listen to that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album that was supposed to have saved rock n' roll? About the only relevant band still carrying the torch for the once-formidable genre of yelpy, angular indie with hyper-literate lyrics is Vampire Weekend, who succeed in large part because Ezra Koenig is proving to be one of his generation's most gifted songwriters. That means trouble for acts like Tapes 'n Tapes, who, unschooled in the art of the gratifyingly huge chorus or the indefatigable groove, make as much as they can out of abrupt shifts in tempo and mood, supposing that if a song is dynamic then it must also be interesting. This, as the stop starting "Freak Out" and the initially slight and eventually cacophonous "On and On" demonstrates, is not the case. In fact, Tapes 'n Tapes sounds best when they play it straight and straightforwardly imitative: The opening pair of "Badaboom" and "SWM" may recall the Strokes and Modest Mouse, respectively, but they're fine songs in their own right, and it's not as though either of those bands has released a lot of stellar material recently. Obviously, Tapes 'n Tapes wouldn't be content as a glorified indie-rock cover band, but what Outside lacks is a sense of what they would want to be instead. If this isn't just meta indie meant to entertain folks who love indie rock and not a whole lot else, then what is it?...full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| I like bar food. I like veggie burgers and fries and the occasional (okay, extremely frequent) plate of nachos. I like feeling that when I go somewhere for such food, I can show up looking however I please, that no visual or behavioral state of being (barring unruly and destructive) will be frowned upon. In 2005, Minneapolis’ Tapes ’n Tapes released a record I consumed like bar food — ravenously, insatiably, uninhibited. The Loon was initially released via their own label Ibid, then re-released in 2006 when XL picked up the album to widespread — and widely maligned — buzz. At the time, they were the quintessential blog band, for better or for worse. The Loon felt as weird and haunting as its lonely avian namesake. Frontman Josh Grier howled and barked. His vocals seemed booze-soaked, manic and crazy-eyed, and the sparse, bottom-heavy, stop-and-start instrumentals provided by bandmates Matt Kretzmann, Erik Appelwick, and Jeremy Hanson only compounded the air of brooding ruefulness. It was delicious. When 2008 came around, Tapes ’n Tapes released their sophomore record Walk It Off, again via XL, to an unexpectedly large, hungry fan base. Because the band has since cut ties with the imprint, I can’t help but wonder (perhaps unfairly) if the label itself had something to do with Walk It Off being a far cry from the little, unpretentiously tasty Tapes ’n Tapes I had come to crave. It was like going to your favorite bar and being unexpectedly treated to fancy, unsuccessfully prepared gourmet-style dishes and awkward fine-dining service. It was okay, I guess, but it certainly wasn’t why I’d gone there. So with a fair amount of trepidation, I sat down with a fork and knife to consume Outside. I needn’t have feared. One of the criticisms I was armed and ready to levy at any new Tapes ’n Tapes album when compared to The Loon was that, like Walk It Off, it was too much of a full-band affair. It had lost its eccentricity, its sparseness, the sort of aching, spastic charm that glowed so brightly from within what seemed like a perfect vacuum. But within the first few seconds of Outside, I am clearly wrong to have assumed that The Loon’s stylistic era had concluded. Leadoff “Badaboom” is alternately so lush that you can barely pick out buried parts (it's got these cathedral-large overtones) and so restrained that its occasional complete silences halt you in your tracks. It’s unexpected from a band that I was willing to dismiss as having wandered away from its best sound. Sure, there are throwaway tracks here and there — while “One In The World” is campy and catchy, I find it a little annoying despite its high-ratcheted energy; and “People You Know” is the millionth recycling of the same doo-wop progression everyone feels like it’s a fresh idea to put their spin on — but the bits where Outside either returns to original Tapes ’n Tapes form or goes somewhere new are plentiful and nourishing. “Desert Plane” features an interesting interaction between the repetitive guitar part and the counterpoint bass line below it, as well as the minor melody that soars above jiggling tambourine and thudding drums. Likewise, “Nightfall” breaks away from its dark brass pop into an eye-tearing, distorted guitar riff. It’s a really gutsy — as in abdomen-punching — moment, and no band that’s actually lost its stuff could ever deliver it....full text |
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