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Product Description The first 9 tracks are on the vinyl release: Remnants of a deeper purity (deluxe edition) by Black Tape For A Blue Girl redefine pure faith fin de siécle with my sorrows for you will burn your wings upon the sun | MP3 excerpt – part 1 | MP3 excerpt – part 4 wings tattered, fallen fitful remnants of a deeper purity | MP3 excerpt again, to drift (for veronika) i have no more answers | MP3 excerpt January 2025 – 2LP | Fourth colored vinyl edition. Hand Poured Orange Rust Swirl. Limited to 500. 2025 vinyl 2LP re-release in beautiful hand-poured edition. Each one is unique. Orange Rust Swirl, 140 gram. Limited to 500. 4-page insert w/lyrics & candid photos. Remastered from original DAT mixes. Their 1996 breakthrough album with over 18,000 sold. Purchase in Europe for fast, inexpensive shipping: Information in English here. Click to order 2LP Also available: 2-CD digipak and previous Burgundy/Black swirled vinyl edition. Achingly beautiful neo-classical, ethereal, darkwave with long deep tones, intense vocals and rich cello and violin arrangements. Twenty-nine years since its release, Remnants is the timeless work of poets of the broken spirit; it explores the contours of the human soul in a flawless alchemical fusion of sad and majestic heartbreaking beauty. Mesmerizing & melancholy. The 77-minute album is Blacktape’s breakthrough masterpiece: exquisite and stunning. Wrapped up in the emotions of betrayal and salvation, searching for the deeper fragments — somewhere between sadness and hope — Sam’s words and harmonies weave a soft, opaque veil over a world where feeling is foremost, emotions on the surface, the heart laid bare. Intense vocals from Oscar and angelic vocals from Lucian grace the rich cello and violin arrangements of Vicki and Mera; together with Sam’s electronics they reveal a deeply contemplative and passionate world lavishly illustrated with layers of liquid harmonics. Remnants of a deeper purity is a collection of tales: tales of betrayal, hope, love lost, and love found. By its very nature, Remnants is a breathtaking, lush, and beautifully presented piece of art. Its dense, thick refrains invite deep listenings to get to its pure seductive delights. What did the press say? The Washington Post: Devotees of more upscale forms of bombast may scoff at goth (or “darkwave”), but there’s little on black tape for a blue girl’s Remnants of a deeper purity that’s more lugubrious than a typical passage from Berlioz or Richard Strauss. Indeed, the 22-minute “For You Will Burn Your Wings Upon the Sun” is very much the symphonic tone poem, all straining strings and morose melody. And, since the group has neither a bassist nor a drummer, there are none of those annoying rhythms to irk the symphonic buff. Despite the violin, cello and harmonium, this quintet is equally indebted to the moody late-’60s art-folk of Leonard Cohen and Pearls Before Swine. Unfortunately, songwriter Sam Rosenthal has none of Cohen’s literary prowess. His lyrics read like a cross between Victorian doggerel and literary soft porn: “If only I could capture the essence of purity/ Reawaken me, entranced by flesh and lace.” Clearly, it’s just as well that such compositions as “Fin de Siecle” and the title song consist primarily of crypto-classical flourishes and pseudo-churchly vocal arrangements. The Philadelphia City Paper: Like Dead Can Dance, black tape for a blue girl dramatically flirts with symphonic decay. Onda Rock, Italy: PIETRA MILIARE… the category in which we put albums we consider historical masterpieces, something that has been very important for the development of a genre or for music history… Rosenthal’s compositions, in fact, seem to reveal the intensity and eternity of the fire that stirs beneath the seemingly placid surface of reality. The song form, then, is dissolved by the apocalyptic swirl of a musical format that derives, by successive syntheses, from the perfect interpenetration of dark sensibility and the austerity of classical chamber music. On this basic canvas, the solemn voices of singers Oscar Herrera and Lucian Casselman, wonderfully at home in these blinding scores of the unknown, are inserted. Remnants of a deeper purity is a striking, majestic, unforgettable album. musictap.net: black tape for a blue girl is best described as the poets of the broken spirit, musically and lyrically exploring the heart of the human soul in all of its unavoidable sadness. That may sound like depressing stuff but it is far from it. The quest for the elements of love, of faith and faithfulness, and the essence of happiness as if they were concrete rather than the abstract rudiments of humankind, has been the unrequited search of all time. Given the absolute heartbreak of desire and free will, with all of its choices, most of which bode badly, it is little wonder that the great authors, painters, and composers of all time have devoted lives to the sad song of impossibility with the brush of possibility somewhere hidden. blacktape explores these dark corners of deception, betrayal, love, hope, and rebirth perhaps more adroitly than any other band. The revisitation of black tape for a blue girl’s greatest achievement is a great cause for celebration. Works such as are found on this 2CD 10th Anniversary reissue of the classic Remnants of a deeper purity are priceless. huh magazine: The ethereal, romantic sounds of REMNANTS is their richest work so far: tapestries of melancholic, often neo-classical music manifest themselves amidst waves of Rosenthal’s lush keyboards, haunting strings and the vocals of Oscar & Lucian. Magnet Magazine: These songs are remnants of universal feelings that accompany the experience of bonding with another human being and its aftermath – perhaps this is why the group has attained a strong cult following. ink19: Absolutely beautiful, bleeding emotion wonderfully portrayed. ink19: I completely adore this. Sam Rosenthal’s electronics generate warm, thickly textured layers of atmospheres that carry unbelievable amounts of emotion, as do Oscar Herrera and Lucian Casselman’s vocals, Mera Roberts’ cello, and Vicki Richards’ violin. All of it blends perfectly into a sumptuous tapestry that portrays a wide range of emotion, but generally stays close to the melancholy. The scope of this album is also very impressive. It flows beautifully – all 77 minutes of it. My favorite track is “for you will burn your wings upon the sun,” which also happens to be the longest, clocking in at a little over 26 minutes. Nowhere does it become tedious. This is Sam’s most ambitious project yet and, in my opinion, his most successful one. Absolutely beautiful, bleeding emotion wonderfully portrayed. THE BAND: Oscar Herrera • vocals, guitar & tambourine Lucian Casselman • vocals Vicki Richards • violin Mera Roberts • cello Sam Rosenthal • harmonium & electronics TRACKS: A 1 Redefine Pure Faith • 2 Fin De Siécle • 3 With My Sorrows B 1 For You Will Burn Your Wings Upon The Sun C 1 Wings Tattered, Fallen • 2 Fitful • 3 Remnants of a deeper purity D 1 Again, To Drift (For Veronika) • 2 I Have No More Answers …from the 1996 album bio: This album picks up musically where songs like “We watched our sad-eyed angel fall” (off A chaos of desire left off: long droning deep tones overlayed by intense vocals from Oscar and Lucian as well as rich cello and violin arrangements from Vicki and Mera. The results are deeply mesmerizing and melancholy passages that draw from influences as diverse as turn-of-the-century minimalism, Indian classical music and occult dirge-rock. The finished 77-minute album is blacktape’s masterpiece; exquisite and stunning. Wrapped up in the emotions of betrayal and salvation, searching for the deeper fragments of a truer reality — somewhere between sadness and hope — Sam’s words and harmonies weave a soft, opaque veil over a world where feeling is foremost. With this release, black tape for a blue girl draws together all the diversities of their past ten years, becoming the consummate modern day chamber orchestra whose maestro is our own inner soul. Sam: “Remnants of a deeper purity is an album of rebirth — the internal analysis and exploration that paves the way for a major upheaval. a realignment of balances. searching through the fragments of a past. paring experiences down to their essence. revealing the deeper core. the shattered filaments of truth and experience that will yet re-entwine to form a new highwire of ecstatic life. the album is the contemplation of betrayal (by others and of the self), the realization of a subterranean thread linking the past to current desire, the revelation of deep personal fears and insecurities… and the attempt to reintegrate all of this into an individual who can re-experience life and the beauty of existence. the lingering thought is ‘redefine pure faith’ so that we may yet re-emerge,renewed…” Read a pdf of the full lyric booklet Funded by Blacktape’s fans on Kickstarter (who have their names forever thanked on the credit page of the deluxe 8-page booklet), we have a select quantity of the vinyl copies of Remnants of a deeper purity available. The album was remastered (from the original DAT mixes) in Europe by Anders Peterson / GS Mastering & Post. Sam re-created the package in vinyl format, and included (once again, at the backer’s request) a full page of rare photos from the Remnants-era. Timeline of Remnants of a deeper purity release formats: 1996 – Original CD release (PRO68). Jewel case in a tuck box with an over-sized 20 page booklet. 2006 – 10th anniversary 2-CD edition (PRO186). Jewel case with a 16-page booklet. 2013 – 2-CD in an ecoWallet, without a booklet. Read a pdf of the full lyric booklet. Includes one additional track (“With My Sorrows – 2013 mix”) on disc 2 2014 – (Disc 1) Remastered edition in ecoWallet. 2CD without a booklet. Disc 1 remastered from the original DAT tapes for the LP & CD release. April 2014 – 2LP | First colored vinyl edition, swirled burgundy & black. With 8-page album-sized booklet, and CD in paper sleeve. 300 copies. 2016 – 20th anniversary deluxe 2-CD edition (PRO333). In 6-panel Digipak, with 2014 remastered disc 1, 16-page booklet, and sticker. November 2018 – 2LP | Second colored vinyl edition, swirled burgundy & black. With 8-page album-sized booklet, and download code in a wide-spine LP jacket. 150 copies. May 2020 – 2LP | Third colored vinyl edition, swirled burgundy & black. 302 copies. January 2025 – 2LP | Fourth colored vinyl edition. Hand Poured Orange Rust Swirl. Limited to 500. Click to Join, hit send, and I’ll add you to the list. – Sam
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