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To touch the milky way

by Black Tape For A Blue Girl

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Patrick Lynch
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Patrick Lynch The entire album strikes me as a very satisfying meditation on reincarnation and the agony of trying to hang onto the memories and to somehow get a fully lived life right so one doesn't have to come back in the end. Favorite track: To touch the milky way.
rikm
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rikm The emotive quality of Black Tape For A Blue Girl has always been at the heart of their appeal to me, has always informed and influenced my thoughts about them as a band, and why I hold them so close to my heart.

On "To Touch The Milky Way" that emotive quality particularly resonates with me, particularly connects. Maybe it's Michael Plaster's vocals, or maybe it's just the head space I'm in, but there's a throughline that connects this album to my heart and I'm grateful for that connection...
Scott
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Scott After hearing Dani sing "the Stars," I feel as though I’m soaring up through an evening storm, the brilliant points of light in the night sky above shining through the wispy cloud tops like stars in a dusty galaxy. The music matches my mood of the past year while the lyrics help to pull me up out of the doldrums I've been in. Excellent performance from Michael also (the whole gang, really). Thanks for a great album, Sam! Favorite track: the Stars.
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    CD in 4-panel digipak, with 8 page photo booklet (lyrics are included in download booklet with your Bandcamp purchase). Ltd edition of 1000.

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1.
i awaken through the clatter of history my armor falls around me aware, my eyes open i’ve been here before ashes floating in the air looking up into the same constellations we saw last time the same complicated wreckage of our lives another spin of the universal wheel i land in another cycle: observer, victim, and perpetrator repeating my mistakes, again, again, again i’m a brutal man raging at a boy shivering in the dirt or holding a young pilot dying on a beach if only i hadn’t been too late if only i hadn’t been too late every so often when i awaken i see your face in this incarnation we don’t hurt each other cherish this beauty, too soon it will be ash then i speak, but discord steps in i recall this is when i always leave spin the wheel once more, watch the galaxy turning the cycle begins upon itself one cycle closer to understanding i close my eyes and try to remember i close my eyes, watch the galaxy turning, and i forget
2.
i don’t know, i just don’t know, does anything remain? something not worn away by all the battles can i trust again? can i even trust myself? i haven’t left the house in days, calling in sick with spirits watching over me drinking alone, i’m thinking you’ll abandon me when you keep finding me like this, of course i can stop, i promised i’ll stop why don’t you hold me and talk anymore? why are you shouting? every word a lifetime, a lifetime, a lifetime i wish i could take back those angry words, i really only wanted to tell you i loved you does anything remain through all the mistakes and all the wasted years, i try to forget myself
3.
you’re twenty-three again, in my backyard laughing by the pool, diving underwater you come up and smile at me, in my memories what if we could go back there, and i could hold you? what if it was that summer again, and it felt like it was real? so damn real! i taste your kisses the water on your lips, you’re drippin’ all over my feet again maybe we’d stay there, and maybe we’d never come back maybe we’d always be there maybe i’m there, and i want to be trapped in my memories maybe i’m lost, beneath the planks or that time in the cabin, or slithering naked across a thousand blades
4.
the Stars 04:42
nothing to stop me from drowning in hopelessness except for another, except for another, except for another love another chance to get it right, another chance to feel alive you walk through the door, snow in your hair, tears in my eyes he says he doesn’t understand why i take life so hard always another, always another, always another doubt another chance i’ll let you down, these overwhelming feelings around i look up from the kitchen table, i try to smile he says, “all of this makes you who you are i love you like you love the stars: so far away, so brilliantly beaming your luminosity enlightens my dreams.” we escape into dreams to keep reality away all of this makes us what we are i love you like i love the stars we’re imperfect but that’s ok we are imperfect in every way i love you like i love the stars i love the stars
5.
in my room alone with my fears taking me thoughts of losing you wash right over me smelling your skin i’d smile, losing you, losing you touching your hand made it all ok for another day i walk into the sparkling water on some faraway beach i dream of holding your hands again, i rush underwater to be forgotten and fear brought me closer to you, closer and fear brought us closer, closer and losing you, and drifting out to sea and losing you, i’m lost
6.
all of the things i wanted, all of the things i could be forever and ever beyond my grasp, slips away from me and oh, i lived in my obscurity and oh, i lived in my obscurity believing, is not the same as being alive and living, is never the same when you’re living a lie hold me tight in a warm embrace, reveal my deception just a coward cowering behind his fears, prepared for my destruction and hold me tight in a withering fire, burn my disguise i’m losing at a life that i have not lived, defeated in my victory i think i once felt a moment of passion, i think i’d like to feel alive joy, hate, sex, thirst, longing, pain, passion, i think i want to feel alive
7.
with these hands, i reach for the stars, the stars above you another lifetime, another battlefield, i reach to touch the milky way above you if only i hadn’t been too late, if only, if only, if only i’d arrived i lost my friends there. i hope we go somewhere when we die, what are we if not eternal? why do we fight, and love and die? on my back in the dust with my eyes on the wheel of the milky way so the infinite can know itself. we are awake for the infinite to know itself

about

★ In Europe, the CD & LP is available from Projekt's European Webstore. They offer less expensive shipping than buying from me in Portland Oregon. And you won't get customs charges. deejaydead.de/de/projekt/black-tape-for-a-blue-girl/black-tape-for-a-blue-girl-to-touch-the-milky-way-lp-white-brown-vinyl-2018-ltd-300

★ Downloadable pdf with lyrics and images from the booklet: www.blacktapeforabluegirl.com/touch
★ “Reconnect with and reflect on the larger legacy of Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s emotive whirlwind.” – idieyoudie.com
★ “To Touch the Milky Way is art rock in the most orgasmic sense. Danielle Herrera has such a gothic sexuality to her performance.” – Infrared Magazine
★★★★★★ ★★★★★★ ★★★★★★ ★★★★★★ ★★★★★★

“…striving to take hold of the life they have left unlived”

Ethereal, evocative, powerful and introspective, Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s 12th studio album To touch the milky way expands upon their sweeping Art Rock aesthetic. Utilizing multiple genres and instrumentations as elements to shape a larger conceptual work, the eclectic, modernist approach refreshes BlackTape’s pioneering musical sentiments while maintaining the unique originality of their sound. Captivating vocals from Danielle Herrera and Michael Plaster accent songwriter and bandleader Sam Rosenthal’s electro-acoustic atmospherics and foreboding, engaging lyricism. A contemplative twilight hangs over these seven tracks.

As the premier artist on the Projekt record label he founded in the early 80s, Rosenthal has been a tireless creator of new sounds. Moving from Los Angeles to Chicago to Brooklyn over the years, Rosenthal recently settled into Portland, Oregon where he’s written and released more music in the last 4 years than in the prior 15.

This creative energy led to an album encompassing powerful personal and transpersonal themes. There’s a yearning for connection to a truer understanding of self and our potential — letting go of façade and fears, obstacles which hold us back. The lyrics emerge from the depths of the psyche addressing a desire to feel truly alive by overcoming self-imposed boundaries. They are first-person narratives at the edge where something has to give, something has to change, as the characters strive to take hold of the life they have left unlived. “I close my eyes and watch the galaxy turning” and the title track explore a consciousness-expanding understanding of the cyclical nature of existence mixed with a hunger for something eternal beyond this reality.

Non-binary porn star Mercy West portrays the androgynous alien traveler in Rosenthal’s cover photography. The deluxe crowdfunded edition, downloadable booklet, and CD booklet contain 8 pages of striking photos the duo shot at locations throughout Oregon. Rosenthal explains, “The photos reflect an attempt to externalize the feelings of isolation, alienation and longing of the lyrics. Mercy’s character is a stark representation of our struggles, lost within a larger self-defined world that attempts to limit our true nature.”

Rosenthal’s electronics, harmonium, piano, and acoustic guitar form an intimate backdrop for Herrera’s ethereal, tender, heartfelt voice and Plaster’s breathy, sensitive vocals. The emotionally-charged pieces are enhanced with appearances from drummer Brian Viglione (of The Dresden Dolls), violist Nick Shadow, multi-instrumentalist Chase Dobson. The title track features electric guitar from Walter Holland of Californian 70s space rock band Amber Route.

Closing on a sorrowful but moving note, the arpeggiated piano of the title track slows to a crawl as we drift upon the alien landscape of the startling cover imagery. To touch the milky way is a goal that might remain beyond reach; however by interpreting Sam’s lyrical suggestions, we’re encouraged to reach for it nevertheless, grasping for all that might be attainable during our brief time under the existential glow of a fading sun.

credits

released October 26, 2018

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Black Tape For A Blue Girl Portland, Oregon

Black Tape For A Blue Girl creates darkwave, ethereal, neoclassical, ambient, goth albums. This page also includes my ambient/electronic music, as well as side-projects. Thanks for listening. Sam

Patrons receive exclusive music: blacktapeforabluegirl.bandcamp.com/patron

Formed in 1986
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