It's fitting that this third full-length CD from Seattle's Tagging Satellites opens with a sparse, icy soundscape and a babbling, chilling lullaby from vocalist Zera Marvel.
Tagging Satellites' world is painted with swaths of fuzzy guitars, sprightly yet sedate rhythms, twinkling keyboard strokes, sighing strings and Marvel's washed-out coos. It's a place that is sweet and scary, seductive and spooky, a world where the Cocteau Twins, Swans, Slowdive, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil and the entire stable of bands from the 4AD label would feel right at home.
Though many of the defining elements are present, it would be wrong to consider Tagging Satellites a "shoe-gazer" band. Sure, there's the reliance on layers and layers of swirling guitar and the sense that the whole sound has been sprinkled with pixie dust. But the slightly abrasive and aloof nature of such groups as My Bloody Valentine is missing.
Then there's Marvel's voice -- as wispy and elusive as Hope Sandoval's but possessing some of Kendra Smith's wearied mystique -- which sweeps alongside the music and delicately wraps itself around the notes.
No, the members of Tagging Satellites aren't looking down at their feet, detached and discontent, they're staring up at the sky, eyes wide open and filled with wonder.
Star-gazers?
While there's not much variation in the 10 tracks on "One Night Falls," that's not really a criticism; subtle shifts in tone keep the album rolling along, avoiding redundancy.
"deHavilland Comet" twinkles to life with delicate, crystalline guitar notes before jumping into power-pop chords and swooping strings. Marvel's voice makes the transformation, too, switching from angelic to spectral.
"Memory Wire" barely makes it out of first gear, but the pretty ambient drone and Cranes-styled singing is hypnotic and lovely.
The following "A Better Way" finds Tagging Satellites at its most symphonic and sculptural. While the instrumental areas are swollen with crashing and pureed sound, the vocal sections are a study in crafted subtlety and restraint.
"Red Fence" sounds like Mazzy Star with a string section. The single instrumental, "Unknown," shows the band's epic rock side, and the closer, "Starfire 13," is the perfect track to send you into smiling slumber.
- Scott Lewis, The Oregonian
Risk Of Flight CD Review:
Seattle's Tagging Satellites favor the subtle over the obvious, the discreet over the bombastic. The result is a grounded record- one content to win you over with tenderness rather than aggression.
"Perfect Dream" and "Church on Sunday" erupt from quiet, static ambience into vicious, bitter distorted swirls of fury and noise. Lead singer Zera Marvel does her best PJ Harvey, spitting out words in a voracious piss of emotion.
On the tracks "Circles", "Glow", and "Break and Dive", Tagging Satellites weave an intricate, moody texture of guitars, keys, strings, and dreamy vocals. The opener "Circles" begins with a simple, arpegiated guitar line before a dizzy keyboard wobble dances around the melody, held together by Shea Bliss' simple, understated drum line. Whereas on the noise tracks Marvel was vicious and animalistic, on these softer songs she is languorous and lazy, softly crooning the chorusÍs simple hook, "You...go down, You...go down."
A subtle, mesmerizing track, "Glow" stops midway, leaving guitarist/producer Graig Markel's clean electric guitar and low, grumbling cello to gently, sleepily escalate to a superbly understated climax.
These quiet keyboard-guitar vignettes are amazingly well-crafted, masterfully produced, and exude a calm air of true, simple musical expertise and style.
-Nicholas Taylor, Pop Matters
Abstract Confessions CD Review:
Like that dark-haired poet you had a crush on in high school, there's something mysterious and slightly dangerous about Tagging Satellites. The band's second album, Abstract Confessions, is almost a flashback to the moody, art school-influenced underground of pre-breakthrough Jane's Addiction L.A.--wonderfully detached, on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown female vocals paired with music that finds the middle ground between the ethereal and the razor's edge.
-Barbara Mitchell, The Stranger
Shooting Down The Airwaves CD Review:
From the digital destruction and sampled voice agitation that starts off the record, one gets the idea this is a dark affair. A richly organic release with special attention paid to the low end. An amazing record really- Tagging Satellites operate on the fringe, stumbling in and out of the accessible with seedy elegance.
Graig and Zera are two of the most talented people I have ever met. It's musicians like these two that make people like me work harder to write better material. Miss them a bunch....gotta get up there and drink some wine!!!!!!
