The Aural Film Crew From Chicago, New York

The Scavenger Bride (Projekt)

Black Tape For a Blue Girl

By David Lilly

There are at least two ideal locations for experiencing the music flowing through The Scavenger Bride, the latest release By Black Tape For a Blue Girl. One place is inside an airtight suit on your next spacewalk, giving you the ability to take in this floating music while you gaze out and take in the incredible view as far as you can see all around you. Another place is floating on the craft of your choice on any body of water where you can't see land.

So it's an awe-inspiring, religious experience of a CD? Not exactly, but it does promote introspection (or perhaps clearing the mind) and the liberating idea that life doesn't always have to be lived in high gear, so you might as well take about an hour's worth of inner vacation and enjoy some musical serenity.

The songs that have vocals are works of dramatic theater; some of it is a bit dark, and that's quite appropriate for a CD with the notation, "in appreciation of Franz Kafka" at the end of the accompanying booklet. Commenting on individual songs seems unnecessary, because this disc is such a quilt of spacey and emotionally stirring music, with various textures from beginning to end. It sounds like an ambient film score with some dramatic moments along the way, like a calm night with intermittent thunderstorms.

I highly recommend this disc. Black Tape has several back records and they're an experimental, underground crew, so it's not a case of "if you've heard one you've heard them all." I urge you to see and hear for yourself at http://www.projekt.com/projekt/blacktape/default.html and go from there.