A spectral voice transmits through the ether, but its origin is a mystery and its gravelly speech is caked in mud. It sounds like it’s coming from afar, from beyond the wide sky that separates life from death, passing through distant starlight, and as it broadcasts over the airwaves of Instrumental Transcommunications, it seems to tear a hole in reality’s fragile fabric.
The airwaves of the afterlife are given radio play, and the voice is slightly grainy. It isn’t until later that the speech is written down and properly deciphered. Only then can its meaning be understood. It’s a kind of Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP, captured by a group of ghost hunters and paranormal investigators. During the playback of the recording, sounds that weren’t picked up on at the time seem to seep through, and acidic voices melt through the scar tissue of static and recorded air; they are spectral indentations from beyond the grave.
Croaky sounds rise out of the swampy void like the black-as-night eyes of an alligator. Calm passages are interspersed with the flowery sighs of Beth Roberts, offering a flight away from the other, slightly creepy sounds. Is it all part of a colourful, hyperactive imagination, or is it a form of psychosis? Some kind of subliminal suggestion, or undeniable proof of the paranormal, once and for all? A supernatural event caught on tape? It’s open to interpretation, of course, but the music does seem to point toward something hovering around the visual field, of something on the outskirts and just out of sight, felt more than seen, and not necessarily an unnatural phenomenon but something that not even the latest scientific research has been able to
explain with any degree of certainty. In that sense, it remains unexplained.
The orchestral swells clasp onto grey, indefinable layers that are constantly morphing. At once sublime and spooky, Tape Loop Orchestra dwells in ectoplasmic realms, not connected in any way to the Victorian era but rather looking to future contact. Ghosts are not taken seriously in the age of science and physics, but personal encounters continue to hold a disquieting (or reassuring) power. You may not be able to have the normal without the paranormal.
Like music, just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. And the music warbles in pitch like an old cassette, a flimsy piece of decades-old evidence stored away in an office compartment for safe keeping. Softer melodies rise to the surface, breezing through the air, hinting at some other sweetness after the passing. The sighs that waft around the music are alien orbs of light, coming to take you home. This is not the end; there are other worlds than these. This life is but a level where we learn what we need to learn before ascending once again.