| Halasan Bazar & Tara King Th. — 8 (Deluxe Edition) (13th October, 2015) |
Halasan Bazar & Tara King Th. — 8 (Deluxe Edition)
• Poklady staré i nové, nová košile od Toma Tailora, káva na stole a spojení dvou srdcí činí den svátečním. “...A wiry psych–pop fever dream that delivers watery guitar lines, chiming xylophones, and appropriately zonked–out vocals from lead singer Fredrik Eckhoff. Halasan Bazar move beyond mere homage territory by vividly evoking the fuzzed–out bliss of a hallucinogenic–induced stupor” — Pitchfork 
Location: Le Chambon–sur–Lignon, a sleepy mountain village in the Auvergne, France ~~ Copenhagen, Denmark
Album release: 13th October, 2015
Record Label: Petrol Chips / Melotron Recordings
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Folk, Electronic
Duration: 49:38
Tracks:
01. Coeurs Croises 2:01
02. Rot Inside 4:10
03. Cover 2:56
04. Ventolin 4:12
05. Beneath the Golden Tree 5:35
06. Below Your Deepest Expectations 4:02
07. Door Wrap 4:41
08. TK16, Pt. 2 3:04
09. Try Their Best 6:27
10. TK16, Pt. 1 3:23
11. Dreaming On 4:43
12. TK15 (Coeurs Croises early demo) 0:54
13. TK16, Pt. 1 (Instrumental) 3:23
• All songs played, arranged and recorded between January 26–February 1, 2014, La Gargouille, Chambon Sur Lignon, France. Performers are credited as "Tarasan Kazar" on rear sleeve.
• Vocal for TK16 recorded at Ray Borneo’s Mansion (France), April 2015
• Track 3 Recorded Nov. 2013
• Track 4 recorded Jan–Feb 2015 at Ray Borneo’s Mansion (France) and at the Bunker (Copenhagen)
• Limited edition of 50, hand numbered 3”cdr, attached to a card on a fine glossy paper.
• This is the standard release. First 20 orders digital or physical include an additional handmade stenciled card, hand numbered on black matte thick paper. First 6 will receive the art edition.
Credits
• Arranged By, Recorded By — Halasan Bazar, Tara King Th.
• Bass, Guitar — Christian Hank Jørgensen
• Drums — Josselin Varengo (tracks: 4, 8)
• Drums, Percussion — Craig Martin Wood
• Lyrics By — Béatrice Morel Journel (tracks: 4 to 6), Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff (tracks: 2, 3, 6 to 9)
• Organ, Keyboards, Percussion — Josselin Varengo
• Piano — Christian Hank Jørgensen (tracks: 8), Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff (tracks: 9)
• Recorded By, Engineer, Producer, Mixed By, Mastered By — Ray Bornéo
• Synth, Organ, Keyboards, Guitar — Arnaud Boyer
• Vocals, Guitar, Organ — Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff
• Vocals, Organ, Percussion, Flute — Béatrice Morel Journel
• Written–By — Halasan Bazar (tracks: 2, 3, 7, 9), Tara King Th. (tracks: 1, 4 to 6, 8) 
Review by Robert McTaggart
• February 2014 in Le Chambon–sur–Lignon, a sleepy mountain village in the Auvergne, and Tara King Th (FR) and Halasan Bazar (DK/NO/UK) meet for the first time, a musical blind date arranged by Steve Rosborough, boss of both bands’ Californian label Moon Glyph. Armed with an embryonic songbook of ideas exchanged over the internet, the newly formed sextet set up a makeshift studio in La Gargouille, the deliciously incongruous 70s–styled local discothèque, together with photographer/film–maker, Sébastien Tixier. Living and playing, singing, drinking and dancing together in glorious isolation amidst the snow and disco balls, the collective rapidly bond, and the stage is set for them to merge their individual brands of psychedelia — Halasan’s introspective and whimsical folk–rock and Tara King’s
cinematic baroque pop — into one organic whole.
• They rise to the occasion, swallowing influences, expanding their palettes with open minds, maturing startlingly before our very ears. Guitars shimmer and keyboards swirl and chime to form an atmosphere of giddy intoxication, while bass and drums provide a backbone of powerfully pulsating precision. In the foreground are the stoned, melancholic vocals of Fredrick Rollum Eckoff and the seductive and nuanced tones of Béatrice Morel–Journel. The songs are a delicious variety set to life by the detailed production of Arnaud Boyer. ‘Coeurs Croisés’ and ‘Ventolin’ come from a soundtrack to a halfdreamed Nouvelle Vague tale of espionage, sex and spilled blood. ‘Rot inside’ is aching dark romance. There’s crystalline fragility on ‘Cover’, bluesy swagger on ‘Door wrap’ and plaintive, primal howl on ‘TK16 Part 2’ and ‘Beneath the Golden Tree’. ‘Below your deepest expectations’ ebbs and flows in epic style, close–to–defeat yet defiant, while the tripped–out groove of ‘Try their best’ drones hypnotically before soaring heavenwards. • (written by Robert McTaggart)
Review
Gannon, October 15, 2014
• The comparative adjective “much–anticipated” gets much overused. In the case of 8, however, it’s more than entirely apt. Halasan Bazar’s 60s psyche–folk masterwork How To Be Ever Happy has deservedly just been reissued while Tara King th. has utterly beguiled on both cinematic psyche–pop tapes to date, last year’s wonderfully noir Hirondelle Et Beretta in particular.
• Introduced by shared label boss Steve Rosborough earlier this year the resultant six–piece struck it off, isolating themselves deep in the Auvergne in order to flesh out this exciting collaboration. And, ironically enough considering their home countries (Tara King th. couldn’t be more French while Copenhagen collective Halasan Bazar are led by Norwegian exile Fredrick Rollum Eckoff) they’ve gone Dutch, splitting their signature sounds so that no–one comes out on top.
• Standout “Rot Inside” is the clear winner in this arrangement. The best of both worlds, Béatrice Morel–Journel and Eckoff duet like Nancy Sinatra making eyes at a stoned Ian McCulloch, gloomy Farsifa oscillating away like Crystal Stilts caught in some sun–bleached cactus–chapel limbo. “Door Wrap”, on the other hand, sounds entirely new. It’s all very sunglasses–indoors, Morel–Journel’s unrecognisably fractured vocal and the track’s paranoid string rattles lending depth to a near–funky psyche–lounge shuffle.
• It almost goes without saying that 8 is an evocative listen, but when has a wheezy organ ever not been full of intrigue? Who doesn’t side with ghostly chimes and the vaguely surf–like every time? And you just cannot fail to fall for heavy–hearted, Velvet Underground–and–pedal–steel abetted sighing of this quality. Add to this a bleary skonk–drone blowout and you’ve got gold. In fact, when it comes to twinkling tracks like the French–language “Ventolin” it kinda just makes you hope David Lynch has a dream sequence to fit for his can’t–come–soon–enough third instalment of Twin Peaks in order to give it the exposure it deserves. Much–anticipated? It’d have been worth the wait at twice the time. • Best track: “Rot Inside” • http://www.sicmagazine.net/
Website: http://www.tkth.com/
Bandcamp: https://halasanbazar.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tarakingth/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Halasanbazar
_____________________________________________________________
| Halasan Bazar & Tara King Th. — 8 (Deluxe Edition) (13th October, 2015) |
Album release: 13th October, 2015
Record Label: Petrol Chips / Melotron Recordings
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Folk, Electronic
Duration: 49:38
Tracks:
01. Coeurs Croises 2:01
02. Rot Inside 4:10
03. Cover 2:56
04. Ventolin 4:12
05. Beneath the Golden Tree 5:35
06. Below Your Deepest Expectations 4:02
07. Door Wrap 4:41
08. TK16, Pt. 2 3:04
09. Try Their Best 6:27
10. TK16, Pt. 1 3:23
11. Dreaming On 4:43
12. TK15 (Coeurs Croises early demo) 0:54
13. TK16, Pt. 1 (Instrumental) 3:23
• All songs played, arranged and recorded between January 26–February 1, 2014, La Gargouille, Chambon Sur Lignon, France. Performers are credited as "Tarasan Kazar" on rear sleeve.
• Vocal for TK16 recorded at Ray Borneo’s Mansion (France), April 2015
• Track 3 Recorded Nov. 2013
• Track 4 recorded Jan–Feb 2015 at Ray Borneo’s Mansion (France) and at the Bunker (Copenhagen)
• Limited edition of 50, hand numbered 3”cdr, attached to a card on a fine glossy paper.
• This is the standard release. First 20 orders digital or physical include an additional handmade stenciled card, hand numbered on black matte thick paper. First 6 will receive the art edition.
Credits
• Arranged By, Recorded By — Halasan Bazar, Tara King Th.
• Bass, Guitar — Christian Hank Jørgensen
• Drums — Josselin Varengo (tracks: 4, 8)
• Drums, Percussion — Craig Martin Wood
• Lyrics By — Béatrice Morel Journel (tracks: 4 to 6), Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff (tracks: 2, 3, 6 to 9)
• Organ, Keyboards, Percussion — Josselin Varengo
• Piano — Christian Hank Jørgensen (tracks: 8), Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff (tracks: 9)
• Recorded By, Engineer, Producer, Mixed By, Mastered By — Ray Bornéo
• Synth, Organ, Keyboards, Guitar — Arnaud Boyer
• Vocals, Guitar, Organ — Fredrik Rollum Eckhoff
• Vocals, Organ, Percussion, Flute — Béatrice Morel Journel
• Written–By — Halasan Bazar (tracks: 2, 3, 7, 9), Tara King Th. (tracks: 1, 4 to 6, 8)
• February 2014 in Le Chambon–sur–Lignon, a sleepy mountain village in the Auvergne, and Tara King Th (FR) and Halasan Bazar (DK/NO/UK) meet for the first time, a musical blind date arranged by Steve Rosborough, boss of both bands’ Californian label Moon Glyph. Armed with an embryonic songbook of ideas exchanged over the internet, the newly formed sextet set up a makeshift studio in La Gargouille, the deliciously incongruous 70s–styled local discothèque, together with photographer/film–maker, Sébastien Tixier. Living and playing, singing, drinking and dancing together in glorious isolation amidst the snow and disco balls, the collective rapidly bond, and the stage is set for them to merge their individual brands of psychedelia — Halasan’s introspective and whimsical folk–rock and Tara King’s
cinematic baroque pop — into one organic whole.
• They rise to the occasion, swallowing influences, expanding their palettes with open minds, maturing startlingly before our very ears. Guitars shimmer and keyboards swirl and chime to form an atmosphere of giddy intoxication, while bass and drums provide a backbone of powerfully pulsating precision. In the foreground are the stoned, melancholic vocals of Fredrick Rollum Eckoff and the seductive and nuanced tones of Béatrice Morel–Journel. The songs are a delicious variety set to life by the detailed production of Arnaud Boyer. ‘Coeurs Croisés’ and ‘Ventolin’ come from a soundtrack to a halfdreamed Nouvelle Vague tale of espionage, sex and spilled blood. ‘Rot inside’ is aching dark romance. There’s crystalline fragility on ‘Cover’, bluesy swagger on ‘Door wrap’ and plaintive, primal howl on ‘TK16 Part 2’ and ‘Beneath the Golden Tree’. ‘Below your deepest expectations’ ebbs and flows in epic style, close–to–defeat yet defiant, while the tripped–out groove of ‘Try their best’ drones hypnotically before soaring heavenwards. • (written by Robert McTaggart)
Review
Gannon, October 15, 2014
• The comparative adjective “much–anticipated” gets much overused. In the case of 8, however, it’s more than entirely apt. Halasan Bazar’s 60s psyche–folk masterwork How To Be Ever Happy has deservedly just been reissued while Tara King th. has utterly beguiled on both cinematic psyche–pop tapes to date, last year’s wonderfully noir Hirondelle Et Beretta in particular.
• Introduced by shared label boss Steve Rosborough earlier this year the resultant six–piece struck it off, isolating themselves deep in the Auvergne in order to flesh out this exciting collaboration. And, ironically enough considering their home countries (Tara King th. couldn’t be more French while Copenhagen collective Halasan Bazar are led by Norwegian exile Fredrick Rollum Eckoff) they’ve gone Dutch, splitting their signature sounds so that no–one comes out on top.
• Standout “Rot Inside” is the clear winner in this arrangement. The best of both worlds, Béatrice Morel–Journel and Eckoff duet like Nancy Sinatra making eyes at a stoned Ian McCulloch, gloomy Farsifa oscillating away like Crystal Stilts caught in some sun–bleached cactus–chapel limbo. “Door Wrap”, on the other hand, sounds entirely new. It’s all very sunglasses–indoors, Morel–Journel’s unrecognisably fractured vocal and the track’s paranoid string rattles lending depth to a near–funky psyche–lounge shuffle.
• It almost goes without saying that 8 is an evocative listen, but when has a wheezy organ ever not been full of intrigue? Who doesn’t side with ghostly chimes and the vaguely surf–like every time? And you just cannot fail to fall for heavy–hearted, Velvet Underground–and–pedal–steel abetted sighing of this quality. Add to this a bleary skonk–drone blowout and you’ve got gold. In fact, when it comes to twinkling tracks like the French–language “Ventolin” it kinda just makes you hope David Lynch has a dream sequence to fit for his can’t–come–soon–enough third instalment of Twin Peaks in order to give it the exposure it deserves. Much–anticipated? It’d have been worth the wait at twice the time. • Best track: “Rot Inside” • http://www.sicmagazine.net/
Website: http://www.tkth.com/
Bandcamp: https://halasanbazar.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tarakingth/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Halasanbazar
_____________________________________________________________