In name alone, Gloom Balloon represents grand ups and grand downs.
The new album from Des Moines, Iowa-based mastermind Patrick Tape Fleming does, too. From its Sgt. Pepper’s-riffing cover (a theme of visual homage that has stretched across three full-lengths) to its compelling short story of a title (So Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost), to the record’s sweeping opening track, “Tru Love Waits,” featuring what feels like a church choir preaching its only lines, “Don’t you ever say goodbye. Don’t you make your baby cry. True love waits, it never dies.”
Tape Fleming lists no less than 32 instruments attributed to himself (including Static Electricity, Box of Bulbs, and of course, Balloons) in the album’s liner notes, before going on to rattle off another 22 participants in this recording. At a time when we as a people are isolated, and artists are making recordings that reflect isolation, Gloom Balloon’s latest, the lengthily titled Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost (Grand Phony, Sept. 25th), sounds communal, and that’s needed.
For fans of Tape Fleming, they will hear all of what he does. Self-described (quite accurately, frankly) as “multi-dimensional,” “positively celestial,” and “a shape-shifting pastiche of blissful melodies, heavenly harmonies, female background vocals, and orchestral flourishes,” the expansive, nearly impossible scope of Gloom Balloon’s recordings go head to head on Bergman with more personal prose than ever before.
The sounds are festive, but they are masking solitude.
Bergman, the follow-up to 2017’s Drying the Eyes of the Goddess of Gloom, Underneath the Stars and the Moon, arrives unexpectedly for Tape Fleming. At the time of that album’s release, he told the Des Moines Register that he would likely be stepping away from music to concentrate on family life.
That was three summers ago, and while Bergman isn’t Tape Fleming’s Blood On The Tracks, Dylan does appear on the cover (along with 41 other stars!) Hence, a break-up story isn’t far-fetched.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset),” the album’s first single. Dropping in with a funky beat that brings to mind Bright Eyes with a hip-hop groove, Tape Fleming layers in soulful background vocals and harmonies along with a cacophony of instruments and musical effects to give the song a shimmering pop psychedelia. Besides encapsulating the array of influences that Tape Fleming brings to his production, the song’s message of long distance love speaks directly to this strange new era in which we are all looking for ways to connect with others…from a distance of course. There is a bright optimism to the song and it lingers in your head long after listening.
Tape Fleming describes the inspiration and the fascinating process behind the song:
“‘Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset)’ is a perfect song for the moment, because during a pandemic, even someone you love who might be just down the street seems like a long distance love if you are social distancing. The person gets by in this song by sending songs in the morning via text or whatever. When I started dating my son’s mom we were dating long distance and she sent me a Polaroid in the mail every day of whatever she was doing. By the time we actually started living together they could fill a wall. I still have them all, but love, like a Polaroid, sometimes fades over time. This song was actually recorded long distance, too, as Mumbi Kasumba, who does the female lead vocals on this song, was in Zambia. But, have no fear, I really wanted her to sing on the song, so she found a studio, and I sent her the track and lyrics via e-mail and she recorded her vocals at The Native Studios in Lusaka, Zambia. P.S. A recording studio in Zambia only costs 80 dollars a day!”
LISTEN:
