Made while voluntarily holed up in a remote cabin in the woods of Sweden, Petter Lindhagen describes 'Not Here' as "his midlife crisis album".
A few weeks before his 30th birthday seems a little early to be thinking in these terms but the mood is in tune with the melancholy temper of the work which Lindhagen refers to as a symphony of sorts.
For the first time in the short history of Tired Tape Machine, we hear voices, although the words being sung are barely discernable.
Four of the nine tracks, namely Sisyphus, Your Ghost, Not Here and Bury feature these "choir-like vocal layers" and on the second of these Lindhagen sings with his daughter Stella.
The title track could be the theme tune to a Scandinavian drama while the electric guitar and strings on Hidden make this more post-rock than ambient.
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The grand piano you hear, notably on Stella's Other Waltz and Stella's Waltz, is the one pictured being transported by tractor and trailer on the album's cover art.
Atmospheric and cinematic are the kind of adjectives routinely banded around for albums like this one and, while it is bleak and cheerless in parts, the overall tone suggests that the artist's 30th birthday may not have been as depressing as he'd feared.
Tired Tape Machine on Bandcamp
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