Rien — The Transparent Blue Tape

After a scene absence of a year or so, The Transparent Blue Tape is a new release from Stockholm-based Rien. The project's work focuses on creating sparse/ minimal, yet at points micro-detailed textured noise. This new release comes in the form of either a physical C30 tape, or a digital download- for this review, I’m covering the former.

As the release title suggests it comes in the form of transparent blue tape- this comes presented in a flipside cassette case- which features a blue paper sleeve featuring just minimal text, and run-off black ink grain. The tape comes in an edition of just twenty copies and can be purchased directly from here, and at the time of this review, there are copies still available.

The tape features two side long tracks, and really these work as just one track. It's created by unitizing just one fuzz pedal to create a weave of textual patterning which slowly but surely reduces itself down & down. So the first track opens in a relatively full & busy manner- with a mixture of dragging pop, feasting gritty descent, and circling/micro-grained grinding. As the track unfolds these elements are slowly but surely pared & narrowed back, and by the end of the first side, we have just a line of gritty pop.

Flipping over to the second side's track & it starts off where the last track ended.  Once again the whole thing is carefully stripped back even further to more spaced & reduced series of micro pops and snaps. It remains spellbinding and captivating to the very end- as the whole thing almost grinds to a complete halt, with a  lightly spaced line of textured grit points

The Transparent Blue Tape stands as another skilful example of minimalistic textured noise from Rien. And if you have the patience & mindset to lock into its gently thinning and paring back structure - this truly is an entrancing & almost meditative experience.