From Sam

My Patrons’ small monthly donation helps to fund the creation of my art. They get additional music posted privately at Bandcamp. Join for as little as $5 a month. It’s a helpful way to keep the art flowing.

Bastille Day, Mexico

  • November 7, 2022

Hello Mexico!!! Mexican fans are the #2 country for Spotify streams on the new Black Tape For A Blue Girl single, “Bastille Day, 1961.” I ❤️ your passion for my music. With Jon DeRosa and Henrik Meierkord. Listen at Spotify. Download the single for free at Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s Bandcamp page.

The Scavenger Bride LP

  • October 7, 2022

The Greek vinyl of Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s 2002 The Scavenger Bride is on preOrder for shipping next month. In Europe direct from Circle Music. In the USA from our Bandcamp page. Available in two color options, 250 per color. Here’s the gold and white marble.

A Chaos of Desire now available

  • August 17, 2022

The A chaos of desire 2CD, 2LP, & MiniDisc a now available on the Black Tape For A Blue Girl Bandcamp Page.

(Sean’s package, unpacked)

Sean in Scotland wrote: Package arrived safe and sound last week. Wow! Spinning A Chaos of Desire just instantly put me back in my room at my folks in the early nineties, when I’d just come home from Glasgow with the CD and listened to it for the first time. Was in a bad relationship that I was trying to get out of and, I’ll admit, enjoyed wallowing in emotionally-charged music as a soundtrack to my miserableness! LOL! Always amazed by how music can be like a time machine and transport you immediately to a time and place and, more significantly, feeling. Fantastic package – just blown away! The fanzine is excellent. Just fabulous. Can’t wait for the next one!

Would you do me a favor?

  • July 11, 2022


Could you play this Spotify playlist: Ethereal, Goth & Heavenly Voices.
Many people told me on Facebook that the way they discover new music is when it’s recommended on Spotify (and other streaming sites); ie: when a song or album is finished the algorithm recommends a track you might like. I’m trying to help train the algorithms with this playlist of bands similar to BlackTape. It needs a lot of plays to help train, so please play, share, play again. Thanks.
Sam

Kickstarter success + free new music for you

  • April 9, 2022


Thanks so much to the 260 backers that pledged $13,282 to help bring the A chaos of desire reissue to life. Thanks for loving the music. Thanks to the many many of you who’ve stuck with Black Tape For A Blue Girl throughout the 30+ years since you first heard the band. And thanks to the new listeners who just discovered us. I’m putting the 2LP / 2CD / MiniDisc into production this month; I turned in the LP artwork + masters today. I’ve got some work to do on the DDP master for the second CD (which was funded as a stretch goal), there’s a few files to send to Martin to master, and then I send it into the plant. A couple of people emailed to say they missed the campaign and want to purchase the LP — they’ll be available at our Bandcamp page once the backers receive their copies.


Stream and free download at Bandcamp

In late-December while planning the Kickstarter for A chaos of desire I wondered about how to bring the 2022-era band into the past and involve us in the campaign. Inspiration strikes!!! Jon, Henrik & I could record new neo-classical versions of tracks from chaos. I formed these recordings by reusing my synth parts from the digitized 1990 8-track master tape; Jon and Henrik added vocals and strings in their respective hometowns. Then — like when I mixed The Cleft Serpent — I pulled as much of myself out of the mix as I could to end up with lush, beautiful, mournful versions of “A chaos of desire” & “Could i stay the honest one.”

I edited the video for “chaos” (on the Bandcamp page as well as posted at youTube) before I created the videos for “beneath the icy floe” and “pandora’s box” — the first of the trilogy of videos comes last!

Jon and I tossed around ideas and thought it would be a wonderful surprise at the end of the campaign to give you something entirely fresh: the new band reinterprets the past. We’re thanking you for your pledges which brought us to the funding goal and then to the stretch goal.

The single will be at all streaming sites on April 15.

Sam

A Chaos of Desire Kickstarter 64% funded with 7 days to go.

  • March 28, 2022

One week to go, this is when it gets hectic. Will the campaign make it? I think so. Mind you, it won’t be easy. I am messaging a lot of people on Facebook, using other social sites, spreading the word…. Working hard. You can pledge the Kickstarter campaign here, and listen to the 30-track deluxe album on Spotify, or wherever you stream music..

📹  To begin the final week of the Kickstarter, I’ve posted a 2nd video from the album on youTube, this one for the instrumental “beneath the icy floe.” I’ve always thought of this song as a passage through the shamanic death & rebirth initiation; it was cool to find a cinematographer with footage that captured this idea, and then edit it into something that creates the experimental narrative I imagined. Watch it on your big screen. It’s gorgeous. 🎬

would you like to know what i’ve been up to…

  • March 15, 2022

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 – 
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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.

Help fund A chaos of desire 2LP/CD/MiniDisc

  • March 5, 2022


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

A Chaos of Desire-era interviews

  • January 30, 2022


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 22, 2022


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.