An Album A Day #7. Week 2, Day 2. Yesterday I explained the Mort Aux Vaches series thusly:
In short, think of the Mort Aux Vaches (rough Americanized translation: “Death to Pigs”) as an album series similar in scope to Temporary Residence, LTD’s venerable Travels In Constants series. It was created as sub-label of Staalplaat (home of Muslimgauze, Rapoon, Halfer Trio, Zoviet France and many others) in order to release recordings commissioned by the Dutch broadcasting company VPRO. Of course, most of the artists who recorded sessions for the label were experimental artists whose sonic tendencies were similar in scope. Everyone from Aube to Zoviet France have recorded for Mort Aux Vaches. Each of the sixty-plus titles are produced in limited quantities. None exceed 1,000 copies. All the ones I’ve ever seen come in tri-fold sleeves that hold the CD in place with a split nail. Various materials were used on the sleeves. Some are on tracing paper, some are lenticular, some are weird plastics. Yellow Swans is cardboard relief. Machinefabriek is rubber-stamped card stock. Troum‘s disc is in some weird crumbly cover. Ignatz‘s pretty much looks like it was collected from a trash bin.
And while yesterday was devoted to my favorite packaging of any MAV release, today is dedicated to my favorite overall performance. Commissioned by VPRO for Radio 5 (De Avonden) and committed to tape on the 4/18/2000, Tarentel are responsible for my top Mort Aux Vaches contribution. Remember, this was during the post-From Bone To Satellite and pre-The Order Of Things era, so three of the four cuts appear on those two albums. The other track, “When No One’s Listening,” hasn’t appeared on any release. Unless it was untitled on a previous recording and then was given a name just for this session. And remember this was when Trevor Montgomery (aka Lazarus) and Jeff Rosenberg (of Lavender Diamond, Pink & Brown, etc.) were still in the band! Of course it sounds like most of the other bands compositions from this era, which is to say it’s great. I still think that From Bone To Satellite is one of my ten favorite records of the 2000s. Tarentel came along at a time when I was heavy into Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai and Mono and groups of that nature…and by sticking with them through We Move Through Weather I can honestly say they were responsible from my transition from more melodic post-rock to more noisy/ambient/classically minimalist post-rock. If Tarentel didn’t play the Bottling Smoke festival the week I moved to LA I wouldn’t have discovered Ilyas Ahmed, Pocahaunted, Robedoor, Ghosting, or Starving Weirdos. By following their musical progression pretty much from start to finish (Tarentel as a group has been pretty much silent since 2007…) I feel like I was brought into the world of avant-leaning experimental artists in which I now am more fully-immersed. Of course, there have been solo projects (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Danny Grody, The Drift, Holy See, The Alps, et. al.) and at times those efforts have stunned and awed. I’m still nostalgic for Tarentel, though, and I’m so happy that this live document of those songs and that era exists.
Housed in a sheet of vinyl and fastened with the familiar copper split nail, issued in a hand-numbered edition of 1,000 copies, the Tarentel contribution to the Mort Aux Vaches series is a haunting, beautiful trip of hazy instrumental post-rock bliss. Back in 2005 when I was traveling cross country and had the incredible pleasure (and luck!) to interview Jefre and Jim during a stop in San Francisco, they bestowed upon me many gifts. Most of which were early Root Strata releases. But during that same trip I wandered into Aquarius Records (of course, can’t go to SF and not do that) and scooped this record up along with a Xiu Xiu CD (whatever the new one was at the time…La Foret?) and a — oh God, here it comes — Bright Eyes CD (Fever and Mirrors? I think that was the one the girl I had a crush on at the time liked most). I wasn’t buying vinyl on that trip because I was spending between four and twelve hours a day in my car driving around in sometimes oppressive heat and I was afraid that things might warp or melt…like when it was 110 degrees (or more) in Yuma, Arizona. I thought it was kind of fortuitous for me to find the disc on that day, not because Tarentel was the reason I stopped in San Francisco, but because I’d been listening to From Bone To Satellite so much during that trip it made me start to wonder what they sounded like as a live band during that era. Here’s your answer if you’ve ever had the same deep thought about Tarentel. When I listen I can’t help but feel incredibly lucky and happen that this moment was caught on tape and preserved for all time.
Tarentel
Mort Aux Vaches
(Mort Aux Vaches, 2002)
01. Adonai [MP3]
02. Steede Bonnet
03. When No One’s Listening
04. For Carl Sagan
