Magnetically Yours: an elegant and ethereal release of longing and nostalgia

Tape Loop Orchestra, Magnetically Yours, Germany, Vaagner, VAK77 cassette (2024)

An elegant and ethereal release of ambient droning sound art, “Magnetically Yours” is structured from repeating tape loops that, over time, deteriorate in the quality of their sound as the physical tapes themselves slowly degrade from over-use and exposure to their immediate physical surroundings. Mancunian native Andrew Hargreaves, the sole member of Tape Loop Orchestra, constructed the two tracks of this short release (just over 30 minutes long) from soundtracks of strings-generated music under a layer of “eroded choral humming” (according to Vaagner’s Bandcamp page) and the use of reverb and synth samples, creating a work of introspective melancholy and languid nostalgia bathed in a warm or cool misty atmosphere.

Track 1, recorded in 2022, despite its slow, gentle pace, turns out to be a continuously changing creature of many moods, generating an overall impression of a steady rolling tapestry of ghostly scenes, memories and long-gone visualisations, all gradually fading or blurring, doomed to an indistinct oblivion. The music’s tone is sombre yet soft and peaceful, passing no judgement on this procession of nostalgic recollections that may soon be forgotten or out of reach forever. Sonic transitions are so gradual and so smooth as to be imperceptible, though listeners may be aware of a darkening mood, more lush and dream-like, developing in parts as the background hum becomes more bristly.

Like Track 1, Track 2 which was made in 2023 is just as changeable, though it initially seems sadder and more spiritual and heavenly. Depending on your point of view, some of the spiritual parts can also be a little creepy as what appear to be fragments of voices float in and out of the flow of music which itself is composed of melodic piano and other keyboard flotsam and jetsam. Some of the source material here is more defined and, as the track continues, distinct melodies may become noticeable. Transitions are a bit sharper and faster, and listeners can feel they are definitely on a journey deep into hitherto inaccessible reaches of space.

It’s definitely very haunted and haunting, a work to be treated with respect as you find yourself passing from your mundane material surroundings into a strange world of many interlinked dimensions with porous boundaries, as you drift from scenes of longing and nostalgia into altered states of consciousness where the heights of heaven are but a passage into dark realms of space. “Magnetically Yours” may not compare in scale and grandeur to epic minimalist tape-loop dramas like William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops” but, unlike that work, itself set in a particular point in time and space through its artwork and the circumstances of its recording, “Magnetically Yours” is (as its title suggests) a work you can make very much personal and intimate through your own listening experience.