Hi. Thank you for reading my post when so much out there feels like chaos beyond our control! I’ll keep it short with highlights from up here in Portland Oregon. Stay safe, Sam

– 1 – 
<

There’s 21 days to go on the Kickstarter campaign for our 4th album, a chaos of desire [1991], and 114 backers have taken us to 54% of the goal. Contributions have slowed the last few days, and we need to reach the goal before we can fund the 2LP-CD-MiniDisc. If you were thinking about pledging, now is the perfect time.

– 2 – 
Some really lovely press is coming in from Italy for The Cleft Serpent. I’ve translated them on the Projekt webpage for the album (go to the reviews tab.) Here’s an excerpt from Music Map:

Sam Rosenthal’s creature launches The cleft serpent, the thirteenth album in thirty-six years, an unprecedented formation, entrusting the singing to Jon DeRosa and the cello to Henrik Meierkord, with Sam to reserve for himself — in addition to the writing of the pieces — electronics and synth, defining the contours of an overturned cosmos with its painful, funereal, sinister corollary of pain and perdition, only rarely illuminated by a faint glimmer of redemption.

– 3 – 

The Cleft Serpent LP is in stock, as is the 2nd pressing of 1989’s Ashes in the brittle air LP. At Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s Bandcamp page or Projekt’s European Webstore.

– 4 – 
Listen to the remastered 12-track A Chaos of Desire augmented with 18 bonus tracks at Spotify, or anywhere you stream music.

– 5 – 

a new video for “Pandora’s Box”

– 6 – 

Oscar and I did a video interview about A chaos of desire

– 7 – 

In early 2021 I picked these two colors for the Excelsis vinyl. I thought the LPs would look festive this way… now all around the world we’re looking at these colors and hoping for the best for millions who just want to live in peace. Nice to see many of you flying these colors on your social media profiles. Let it be over as soon as possible.

Thanks to all of you working to make the reissue happen.

Hi, this is Sam from Black Tape For A Blue Girl. I’m running the Kickstarter campaign for the remastered edition of our 1991 album a chaos of desire. I’ve launched this campaign to raise $12,000 which is all going to manufacturing a 140-gram 2-color vinyl 2LP, the CD and a MiniDisc.

Backing this campaign is like preordering and a lot like being a patron of the arts.

Thank you so much, S

In my filing cabinet I have a folder with all the interviews I’ve done (or at least all the ones I saved.) Many of the early ones are fax-copies of handwritten interviews that are so faded they’re almost impossible to read (I suspect I mailed the original and kept the fax for myself). Most of the interviews for A Chaos of Desire — starting in November 1990 — are typed or dot-matrix printer. I found 14 (!) I did between the release of Chaos and Lush Garden. I’m surprised there was so much interest back in the day.

I have a lot of typing-in to do, as these are going into the memorabilia fanzine that will be one of the perks for the Kickstarter backers on the Chaos 2LP/CD/Minidisc crowdfunding campaign. Martin Bowes has mastered the project, and there are three parts to the digital, with some cool bonus bits.

This will be launched in about 3 weeks.

I posted a Kickstarter update about The Cleft Serpent LPs. They are set to ship to me next week from the Czech Republic. It’s been a long ride, but we’re almost home.

Thanks,
Sam

Dreams of Consciousness, January 2022 | Podcast Episode 209 features a video/audio interview with Sam Rosenthal and Jon DeRosa of Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Talking about recording The Cleft Serpent album, the themes, recording remotely during the pandemic, and a band member I’ve never met. Hi Henrik! On YouTube and Spotify.

A writer from Canada contacted me about a book their doing: artists from the 80s explaining their band’s name. This was my reply:

I appreciate your message, but I prefer not to define my band’s name. I don’t want to limiting the meaning of “Black Tape For A Blue Girl” to what it meant to me in a one-second moment back in 1986; that’s not really fair to the listener’s creativity. I’ve been avoiding the question for thirty-five years.

A wide-ranging interview from December 2021 with Jeff at Florida Sound Archive. I talk about the 1980s in Florida when I made the Alternative Rhythms fanzine, running Projekt Records for the last 30 years and of course Black Tape For A Blue Girl. It’s a fun interview with video version at Youtube & as a Podcast everywhere, links to all platforms. Spotify.

A page with my 2009 10 Neurotics-era Gothic Beauty interview.

der fragilitat der menschheit
=the fragility of humanity

Read the full English translation of my interview from the Autumn edition of Germany’s Orkus magazine.

There’s a Black Tape For A Blue Girl article and review in the Herbst•2021 issue of Germany’s ORKUS MAGAZINE. In Europe order the issue at the Orkus shop. Order the (signed) CD, MiniDisc, Cassette, Serpent shirt & preorder the LP at BlackTape’s Bandcamp shop, in Europe, order the CD & preorder the LP at The Projekt European webstore.

English translation of the review:

Black Tape for a Blue Girl: The Cleft Serpent
CD (Projekt)
Allure Anew
Aspects of themes that dwelled within their previous album To touch the milky way drive this new album; this makes it all the more fitting that an adaptation of the title track which formed the conclusion of the predecessor, found its way into the middle of The Cleft Serpent album. As much as the two characters, Serpent and Trickster, seem bound into a repetitive fate between pain and love, they still display a capacity for introspection. Black Tape for a Blue Girl are not bound or limited in their approach to music. Once again they display their multifacetedness with a unique sound full of character, which seamlessly befits the story’s emotions. Profound lyrics with graceful strings and expressive vocals are deeply moving and captivatingly elegant. The Cleft Serpent is simultaneously universal and personal. Powerful (“Ares & Hermes”) or seized by inevitable exhaustion (“So Tired of Our History”), the coherent sound always narrates with enthralling intensity. Fascinating from the first to the last note, The Cleft Serpent is a rich album that allows for more and more to be revealed and discovered on repeated listening!

Here is the article:

Black Tape For A Blue Girl: The Cleft Serpent

This Friday the new album will be available around the world on Spotify, youTube, Pandora, iTunes and everywhere you like to stream / download music. I’m shipping the CD, MiniDisc, Cassette & Shirt from the crypt out here in Portland Oregon. Signed copies* are available directly from me at our Bandcamp Page. LPs are on preOrder and I hope to ship December-ish. In Europe, save on postage by ordering the CDs from Projekt’s European Webstore. The CD is at Amazon as well.

Two of our classic CDs are now on sale for $8; the downloads are name-your-price! 1987’s Mesmerized by the sirens and 2004s Halo Star. If you missed out on these releases back in the day — or have the CD packed away in a box somewhere from that move two apartments ago — simplify your life with a new free download.

My interview is up at Post-Punk. I talk about The Cleft Serpent album, working with Jon and Henrik in the new band, and a bit about what’s coming up at Projekt. I’m also interviewed in the current issue of Germany’s Orkus (2021 #10 with Kat Von D on the cover), and one coming in the next issue of Germany’s Sonic Seducer.

When I was mixing the companion album, I thought the track “To touch the milky way (2021 version instrumental mix)” had the perfect feeling for the plague scene from Werner Herzog’s 1979 “Nosferatu the Vampyre.” I tried them out together, and wow it works nicely! Watch it at https://youtu.be/mVIadfornjM (I have to point out, for bonus points, that it looks like the word “Vlad” is there in the url!)

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram.

* Sorry, no signature on the cassette and MiniDisc. They are too petite to sign.