As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire

Black Tape For A Blue Girl | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 12, 1999)
• Original Release Date: January 12, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Projekt Records
• ASIN: B00000G5PH
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,933 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gloomy ethereal that is not for everyone, July 5, 2002

By 

"swordofset" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire (Audio CD)

BTFABG's work is definitely an aquired taste. Their pretensious, artsy leanings can be off-putting to some as can the bleakness of their sound. However, when they strike the right balance, BTFABG can create some really great stuff.

In my opinion, the less Oscar vocals, the better. Black Tape's best stuff is ethereal, moody, contemplative and quite beautiful. Some if it can be reminiscent of This Mortal Coil's work (in style), some of it similar to darker moodier New Age/Vidna Obmana type work (whom Sam did a collaboration with once. An excellent CD by the way). I don't care what anybody says, I happen to like that stuff and I enjoy melodramatic, dark music. To me, I don't need a band to have so called "redeeming" values in the their work. I don't see optimism as being either a "redeeming" value or a negative one. It just is. If you want optimism put some other band in your player. That's what I do. When I'm in the mood for a more bleak and serious tone, I put in Black Tape or other stuff like them. Everything has it's place and purpose. Just because a work of art is pessimistic does not mean it does not have "redeeming" quality. As for the band being too artsy and literate..well, I see both sides of this arguement. I mean with a name like Black Tape For A Blue Girl, you should know what you are in for....a little pretensiousness is bound to be evident. However it's a sad sad commentary on American culture that when someone is literate and has a knowledge of art and they show it because that is what they are genuinely interested in, they get put down or dismissed as being too "artsy".

That being said a lot of Goth music can be a little too melodramatic at times, too over the top and I tend to like those bands that don't cross that line into excessivness. That's why a lot of Black Tape's work is hit and miss. At their worst they can be unintentionally comical, at their best they are entrancing and beautiful. This release is one of the latter and well worth getting.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Positively Haunting, December 1, 1999

By 

David N. VanMeter (Hilliard, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire (Audio CD)

I listened to this three times in a single afternoon. I found the music to be the most haunting I have ever heard. I bought it on a whim and I am hooked.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Emotional driftwood...but it's *pretty* emotional driftwood!, August 14, 2002

By 

Victoria - See all my reviews

This review is from: As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire (Audio CD)

This is a nice collection of sound-art that's melancholy, pretty, and pleasant to listen to while day-dreaming or getting ready to sleep.

I would agree with other reviewers that it's not for everyone's taste. So, I wouldn't recommend this if you aren't friendly to (or at least open-minded about) experimental/ambient music. I would hesitate to call most of these tracks "songs" in the traditional sense. If you expect a beat and a melody, you'll be disappointed! Also, don't expect great poetry. The lyrics are, at least in my opinion, second-rate. (But that isn't especially distracting. The vocal delivery is generally very non-agressive, so you can ignore the words and let the voices blend into the sounds.)

On the positive side, this CD weaves together a mood that is tranquil, yearning, and dreamy. It's all pretty, and there are occasional moments of beauty. The ethereal voices are nice (especially the female vocals) and the instrumentation is often lulling and sometimes haunting.

You could find it either peaceful or boring, I think, because it doesn't build to any real crescendos. Fragments of melody appear and disappear. A motif starts to develop, then fades away. I think of it as "emotional driftwood" because it's like a fragment of feeling or a bit of a story that washes up on the beach with one wave, then vanishes underwater again with the next. I find it nice to listen to with my eyes closed, just letting my thoughts swirl in and out of the soundscapes. It's sort of like meditation music, but painted with a different palette than the new-age stuff, grey-tones instead of brights or pastels.