Nanook of the North

The Täby Tapes av Nanook of the north

• - "Musiken hade varit lika vacker oavsett inramning." /Nils Hansson, DN
• - "Nanook berättar sin historia om hur kan kom att bli den han är i dag på 37 minuter, och det är mycket vackert, naivt och varmt." /Frida Färlin, Arbetarbladet
• - "En unik skiva att lägga ner tid på och förundras över." /Joacim Persson, Sundsvalls Tidning
• - "Det är smått och vackert med starka låtar och refränger rakt igenom." /Niklas Simonsson, Groove
• - "The Täby Tapes är en både mäktig och märklig skiva, en saga i ord och klanger där inuiternas värld möter vår och blir en helhet i något slags harmoni." /Lennart Götesson, Dala-Demokraten
• - "Brilliant, sobering and beautiful" /Michael Toland, Aural Fixations
• - "The Taby Tapes is a unique musical experience. This record's songs are wistful and sonically beautiful in their unique instrumentation." /The Hub weekly
• - "The Täby Tapes perfectly conveys the beauty, as well as the physical and mental pains, of a bitter winter." /Hunter Felt, Pop Matters
• - "An ingenious outing, The Taby Tapes wraps the heart in cloud-like arrangements, playful instrumentation and utterly romantic vocals." /Jennifer Przybylski, Neumu
• - "Even if there really is no Nanook and no epic journey from Alaska to Sweden, the album's world is so fully-formed and engaging that they're transformed into metaphors for bigger and brighter things that really are True. As a result, the struggles and desires sung about with such charm and effortlessness ring with honesty and emotion." /Jason Moorehead, Opuszine

Vartannat ark i cd-häftet är smörpapper med enkla streckteckningar av grönländskt vildmarksliv. Vartannat ark är gråsvarta foton på höghus i Täby. Rena vidder mot smutsig tätort. Nanook of the North är en kille från Grönland som flyttade till Täby som tioåring och nu har omsatt sin historia i en sorts magisk realism, där han pratar med Karin Boye, mormor och vilddjuren. Eller, mer prosaiskt är det Mattias Olsson och Olle Söderström, två Stockholmsmusiker med många band bakom sig, som har tagit sig detta alias för att berätta historien om en ung man med ett väldigt eget perspektiv på tillvaron.Till sin hjälp har de en vid instrumentpark och en rad gästsångerskor, varje låt är en pojke-flicka-duett. I en serie drömska, melankoliska sånger tecknar de konturen av en människa som mycket väl kunde ha funnits.Men musiken hade varit lika vacker oavsett inramning.
/Nils Hansson, DN

Det här är berättelsen om hur Nanook, en sedan tio år tillbaka utflyttad inuitättling från Baffin Bay, hittar en ny vardag i Täby. Han får besök i drömmarna av författaren Karin Boye som lär honom att prata flytande svenska. Det här är en saga om hur Nanook hittar det vackra i en betonghård förort som numera är hans hem.
Gästsångerskor som Irma Schultz Keller, Carnela Leierth och Malin Olofson gestaltar på skivan Karin Boye, vilddjur och Nanooks mormor. Låter det pretentiöst? Det är det också, men samtidigt fascinerande och vackert.
De duettbaserade sångerna är drömska och mystiska. Instrument som till exempel cello, tuba, kontrabas och orgel blandas med elektroniska inslag och allt ger en sprött vemodig och storslagen stämning.
Tillsammans med en smakfull förpackning, innehållande bland annat bilder på Täbys höghus, är det här en unik skiva att lägga ner tid på och förundras över.
/Joacim Persson, Sundsvalls Tidning

"The Täby Tapes chronicles the travels of young Nanook, an Eskimo boy, from Alaska to Täby, Sweden. It's a love story, in a way, with duelling, sing-songy boy-girl vocals at which Delgados fans will sigh dreamily. This is a daydream of a concept record wrapped up in a country boy's travels in suburbia, complete with beautiful photography of Taby's stark cityscapes. Chock-full with the feeling of awestruck discovery, The Taby Tapes is a unique musical experience, tackling a variety of subjects, from the common themes of love and loss to a song titled "Israel and Palestine - A Solution" that says bluntly, through the relationship between the alternatingly gendered lines, 'Spare parts/Without each other we're useless, abused, and starved/We're the engine of a broken heart...', suggesting the conflict, in actuality, has more to do with loneliness than anything. Interesting at best, but profound in delivery all the way through, this record's songs are wistful and sonically beautiful in their unique instrumentation - haunting horns and Postal Service-like blips set beneath delicately orchestrated, mostly acoustic melody. The songs are as fragile as Taby's subject, the overall product of which is well worth its 38 minutes, and by the time it's done, you've either been saddeningly downtrodden by the city or overwhelmed with discovery. Either way, you can breathe easily - this one's a keeper."
/The Hub Weekly

Nanook of the North's The Taby Tapes is a charming pop record, one of the more successful blendings of indie pop melody and electronic texture. The feel is post Cardigans Sweden meets Sarahand if that sounds good to you, this record is pure heavenly delight. Nanook handles the bulk of the singing and instrumentation but gets help from the Moog Orchestra's Pea Hix on various keyboards and a cast of female vocalists that would give the Sirens a run for their money in the fetching vocals category. The songs trace Nanook's journey from Alaska to Sweden though one never gets the forced feel of a concept record, the songs are intimate and conversational for the most part. Many of the male-female vocals are give and take conversations like on the bewitching "Phone Call" or the dance pop swooner "Forget It Jenny, Love is Just a Privilege for the Rich". Only one or two tracks go overboard on the atmosphere, the overly dramatic "Nasby Park" sabotages the cute lyrics with some very stern soundscapes or "Where Will You Go" which sinks beneath the trip hop beat and Jennie Lobel's overdone vocals. The rest of the record is light and sweet, like a pharmaceutically boosted Stephen Merritt project or White Town with more than one song. Actually Nanook has crafted a record almost on par with a Magnetic Fields record. Especially now that that band has faded some. Hopefully their fans will latch on to The Taby Tapes, they won't be disappointed.
/All Music Guide
Imagine getting a demo CD with a note enclosed explaining, "Here are the recordings we made with an Eskimo boy named Nanook." Who could resist listening immediately. Sounds like a bizarre experience one wouldn't have too often, but exactly the setting deserving of this indie pop gem. Supposedly a band headed by Nanook himself on an Architecture In Helsinki-like list of instruments - mellotron, orchestron, optigan, omnichord, theremin, glockenspiel and so forth - after being discovered at a party singing about his travels from Alaska to the suburb of Stockholm.A brief 37-minute voyage through the fantasy electro-pop land of Nanook with assistant guidance provided by a host of contrasting Swedish girl - hushed "Eskimo boy" vocals. Songs build from strummed guitars and subtle vocals into complex, multi-layered sonic explosions that keep you listening, trying to absorb the detailed, if not cryptic story-telling.With songs as compelling as Näsby Park and Forget It Jenny, Love Is Just A Privilege For The Rich, social commentary abounds, "We don't need no minefields, we don't need no alarms. We don't need no Berlin wall, to make you stay here in this sad place" and "love requires time and time is money. And that is something out of your reach honey."An interesting concept album that resides somewhere between the warm pop of The Postal Service and the sterile electronics of Iceland to create a sonic description of the great white north. 8,7 out of 10.
/JustAddNoise.com

Named after the famous landmark anthropological film made by Robert Flaherty in 1922, which captured the plight of Nanook an Inuit hunter trying to provide for his family amid the Artic extremes of the Hudson Bay. The plight of the Artic dwellers has never really featured greatly in pop music over the years, you'd have to trawl back to the Residents formidable album 'Eskimos' to perhaps have the final word. Mind you all that's a matter of conjecture where Nanook of the North are concerned.
'The Taby Tapes' concerns itself in love, peace and solutions to the world's ills, and it's a gracious adventure captured across twelve tracks clocking in at a brief 30 odd minutes. Obscuring their melodies with a shy tenderness, Nanook of the North play exquisite variants of Celtic folk accompanied by the atmospheric additives of theremins, stylophones, moogs and brass arrangements. 'Karin Boyes Grave' strangely absorbs a mystical charm, so sweetly feint tiny spacey swirls waltz affectionately around the bitter sweet harmonies, it's like the Carpenters meeting Donny and Maria head on at a love in. 'Spare parts (Israel vs Palestine; a solution)' temptingly courts with the Waterboys covering the Go Betweens back catalogue with traces of Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' chasing the prey. Best moment though is the elegantly pained 'Nanook's Ark' which pinpoints the essence of classic Prefab Sprout at McAloon's most brutally open, the romantic interplay of the male / female vocals caress the Christmas like symphonies happily fan-faring beneath. 'Phonecall' lifts elements of 'Grocer Jack' and works them into their delightful twee core to amazing effect.
'Hey Fragile' I could play all night, if only for the dreamy slide guitar which always works wonders here, airy dynamics pepper this tasty morsel which sometimes sounds like it was recorded underwater, did anyone say Deacon Blue, you could be right. 'Where will you go?' dips in for a spot of Eastern mysticism courtesy of the Beatles 'Within you without you' while incorporating a macabre like suspense themology that every now and again flitters to magically fluffy orchestrations that leave you breathless. Romantically tender, lovers of the Prefabs, Go Betweens, Deacon Blue and the Dream Academy will swoon.
/Mark Barton Losingtoday, The indie music magazine