Mark Richardson, Pitchfork Media, 26 November 2002

It's not every day you run across a singles collection that contains only five songs and stretches them out to almost 70 minutes. But San Francisco five piece Tarentel, whatever their other virtues, have mastered the difficult practice of patience. Like Labradford, they know that getting there is half the, well... I guess "fun" is probably the wrong word. Let's just say that the journey is its own reward. These songs take their time.

The first thing you'll notice if you come to Tarentel through last year's album The Order of Things (like I do) is that these tracks are comparatively skeletal. No orchestral flourishes, vocals or scratchy field recording samples here. Ephemera is basically guitar, bass, drums and a little keyboard, with heavy emphasis on the guitar. Somewhere after the time of Spiderland , indie musicians the world over fell completely in love with the sound of a plucked electric patched into a nice amp, and decided that this simple sound, slowly moving through the notes of a chord, one by one, was enough to serve as the focal point for a 10+ minute piece of music.

This attitude made songs like this record's opener, "The Waltz", possible. The first seven minutes or so are little more than the guitarist walking through the chords, slowly and steadily. Of course, then Tarentel has the good sense to add some grumbling organ chords and then finally a distorted blast of guitar noise about 12 minutes in, nicely releasing the tension of the lengthy build. The peaks and valleys of "Looking for Things" are much more subtle, reminding me a lot of Mogwai circa Come On Die Young (which equals "boring" for me, sorry).

My favorite two tracks are the shortest. Both parts of "Two Sides of Myself" come from a seven-inch single, and run a little over six minutes each. The seriously bent guitar notes on the first part remind me a lot of Pink Floyd's soundtrack work. There's an "Age of Aquarius", European hippie vibe that lends an aura of mystery, which the cymbal washes make even more explicit. Part two begins with ripples of some very controlled and quiet feedback and then spreads out from there. This is Tarentel in pure drone mode, close to the bliss world of Windy & Carl.

The closer is the 24-minute "Searching for Things" (are these the same things that were ordered for last year's album?), an odd choice for a single by any measure, which impressively glides slowly from one section the next, folding in all kinds of ominous guitar noises as it grows ever more moody and dark. I won't say it never gets a little dull, but I've heard worse side-length tracks. As for the collection as a whole, nice stuff, but I have a hard time being drawn completely into this world. There's something a bit vague and uncertain about the tracks that deadens their emotional impact, despite how nice they sound.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.0

David Christensen , fakejazz, Issue 29, 12 July 2002

I have been listening to Ephemera pretty much straight since it arrived in the mail, and, like a little present from on high, delivered by a heavenly postman in gleaming white shortpants and knee socks, it has provided me with much needed relief and solace. Not that this is of any interest to you, nor does it necessarily bear on any objective analysis of Tarentel's music, but I have been immersed in a period of great personal stress. The music contained on Ephemera has provided for me an aural oasis where I might lose myself in its warm pools.

The opening track, "The Waltz," is particularly adept at providing much needed escape. It's a nice and long piece (about 15 minutes... most of the tracks are quite long), that, appropriately enough, waltzes along a gentle tempo, beginning with clean guitar arpeggios, gradually adding drones, which, eventually envelop the melody. The drones pulse and build into a burst of bright sound, that subsides back into the original melody again, this time emboldened with resolute drums.

Unlike many other groups that work the slow burn, Tarentel manages to avoid the seemingly ubiquitous violent cacophony (a la Godspeed You Black Emperor!) in favor of a more profound progression. Rather than push towards an inevitable breaking point, the song creates an experience more akin to achieving awareness.

The sequencing of the album is also particularly effective. The early tracks, "The Waltz" and "Looking for Things," utilize deceptively simple melodies and moderate rhythms and tempos to create hypnotic states and propel the listener toward the crescendo. "Two Sides of Myself, Part One" breaks the formula down into a less structured form, creating a bridge to the final two tracks "Two Sides of Myself, Part Two" and "Searching for Things," which are more heavily centered around thick warm drones. Of these "Searching for Things" is the more astonishing of the two—a 25-minute behemoth built out of languid drums, lyric hums, buzzing drones, and other spectral noises periodically beamed in from outer-space. It slowly flows, and the listener drifts along, lost in its murk, then fades to near nothingness, leaving you afloat in a vacuum, like an aural narcotic.

Whether or not you are particularly in need of this kind of fix, the songs collected on Ephemera are a remarkable achievements in terms of utilizing the simplicity of pure tones and expertly mining dynamic shifts. Like Low and Stars of the Lid, Tarentel are able to exercise remarkable patience and restraint to create unique sonic spaces for the listener to inhabit.

rating: 10/12

Cam Lindsay, In Music We Trust, Issue 50, July 2002

(excerpt)

Tarentel uses an extended drone to help make their music flow. The songs on Ephemera are all tremendously long and travel in and out of trances, while mixing flavourful melodies. Focusing on such sonically based bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Mogwai, Tarentel doesn't quite have the intensity of either band, but manages to make up for this in the music's consistency. The entire EP flows nicely, which is mandatory for a recording with 5 songs clocking in at nearly 70 minutes.

B+

Matt Shimmer, Indieville, 24-30 June 2002

There's trouble in space rock town and Tarentel's the culprit!  In a land populated by Mogwai, Yume Bitsu, and the seven million Godspeed You Black Emperor! offshoots, Tarentel has found a little place for itself and is now posing quite a threat to the spacey veterans.

The ironically-titled Ephemera starts off with a beautiful piece called "The Waltz" that rolls along smoothly, starting up with calm, minimalist guitar playing, and then gradually builds up the tension by adding bass, drums, and shifting cymbals to the mixture.  The evolution of the track is very gradual, yet extraordinarily intense; while its repetitive nature may bother those with little patience, the few who wait will be pleasantly surprised by the pure talent for songwriting and performance it showcases.  Whisking through likenesses to Fly Pan Am, Sonic Youth, and Tortoise, the band carries out the piece carefully and flawlessly, and the results are accordingly brilliant.

The two parts of "Two Sides of Myself" are similarly wonderful.  The first part starts with calm guitar strokes, and then slowly builds up into a powerful, yet restrained, movement.  Upon reaching its climax, it decelerates and regresses steadily back to the calmness in which it started.  The second part is much more experimental.  Quiet guitar twangs fly by under a layer of ambient amplifier drone.  And while, unlike its predecessor, it never builds up or slows down, it still manages to be a beautiful piece, feeding the listener's ears with a stream of hum and spacey guitar whispers.

Ephemera could be the best singles collection out this year.  Each track not only stands well on its own, but also flows seamlessly with the others; this could have been called an album and nobody would have questioned it.  Releases this wonderful don't come around all that often; go out and snatch Ephemera while you still can.

91%

Paul Strande, ExtraOrdinary, 21 May 2002

When their debut full length album From Bone to Satellite was released 4 years ago, Tarentel recieved a lot of praise. However, the focus of most reviews was that Tarentel is really good at making music that sounds like Mogwai. The soft/LOUD sound of Mogwai's Young Team was prevalent throughout Satellite's four tracks. In 2001, Tarentel released they're follow-up The Order of Things, which found Tarentel suddenly delving into subtle, minimalist post-rock, with lots of droning.

Ephemera, Tarentel's latest release, is a collection of tracks previously released on 7" and 12" from the period between Satellite and Order. It is very effective in showing the transition from earlier to newer sounds, and even better is that the music is great. Some bands may sound awkward while in the process of trying to evolve their sound. Tarentel seems to take everything in stride. The opener "The Waltz" leads with 10 minutes of looping mellow guitar and ambience and then bursts open with a smooth post-rock sound to close out the track. "Looking for Things" is a wonderful track which shows some of Tarentel's previous aggressive side, without overwhelming the listener. "Two Sides of Myself Part 2" showcases Tarentel's minimalist leanings, with 7 minute's of gentle melody and ambience. The only fault of the album is some of the song lengths. The wonderful "Searching for Things" suffers only from being perhaps 5 minutes too long (it clocks in at 24 minutes total).

Despite the minor flaws, Tarentel have really developed an original sound by not relying solely on large crescendos to provide climax and instead allowing more subtle changes to slowly bring the music to emotional peaks and valleys. An excellent release and an interesting look into the evolution of a band.

Grade: 8/10

J. Ryan Kee, Action Attack Helicopter

This is quite possibly the finest collection of Tarentel songs ever compiled. Mind you, Ephemera is not a new record per se, but rather a collection of rare singles and b-sides. Although it's made up of singles it plays out more like a complete and cohesive album then what it really is. The songs contained within are: "The Waltz" (from the TRL Travels in Constants series), "Two Sides of Myself I and II (from the Two Sides of Myself 7") and "Looking For Things" and "Searching For Things" (from the 10" by the same name). Ephemera is chalked [sic] full of sweeping soundscapes and awe-inducing beauty sure to please any Tarentel fan, as well as fans of Mogwai, Labradford, Tortoise and Sonna. This is the soundtrack to our melancholy lives and in Tarentel's own words: "We allow ourselves to be the soundtrack to any moment, anywhere, in anyone's life." Stunning.

Almost Cool

Usually when you hear of singles collections, a 20-track release packed with b-sides and other whatnots comes to mind, but when you're dealing with a group like Tarentel you get 5 tracks. It should be stated, however, that those 5 tracks unwind over the course of a very nice 68 minutes, and like their first release From Bone To Satellite, the music that the group creates isn't so much about the destination, but the journey.

Unlike lots of other bands who routinely stretch tracks out to 10 and even 20 minutes long (Godspeed You Black Emperor!), Tarentel doesn't always make it a point of building up from nearly nothing into a huge cathartic release. Sure, they progress and add and take away elements within each track (it would be nothing but repetition otherwise), but they never go for the kill, instead drifting along with moments of slightly increased tension and release, but never enough to shake the sleepy dust from your eyes.

When I mention sleep, it's not to say that this release or the band is boring, but their music definitely falls into the realm of trance inducing. Opening with the 15-minute "The Waltz," the track sways back and forth just as the title suggests, building ever so slightly with pretty guitar melodies until the a sprinkle of cymbals turns into a gentle rain of them as other drones come in and fill out the rest of the track at about the two-thirds completed point. After dropping off into almost nothing, the original guitars come back in at a slightly quickened pace along with some drumming and another layer of squalling guitars before drifting off again.

"Looking For Things" (which also clocks in at about 15 minutes) again builds ever-so-slowly with some woozy guitars, as layers of static and noise creep in from the background and a drum beat comes and anchors the track down for awhile before it drifts off into eerie ambience. Although the two-parts of "Two Sides Of Myself" clock in at much shorter times, they're also content to drift along. Part One feels like a spaghetti western track slowed down to about 3 times its usual length, while Part Two goes into even more spacey territory, layering several drones and the ocassional bass pressure drop over an impossibly slow guitar piece (sounding somewhat like the first track being played as it slowly falls into the Marianas Trench).

"Searching For Things," closes out the disc, and at almost 25 minutes feels like a small suite. Working through several different segments, it wanders through a barren desert with lonely guitars before a slight bombardment of noise. Eventually, night falls on the track and all that's left is the sounds drifting in from the satellites and stars. That may sound like a lot of silly talk, but I dare you to listen to Tarentel and not conjure up images in your mind. It's cinematic music, it's music for travelling, and although this release is less-structured than their debut, it's still quite amazing, and fans of drone groups like Stars Of The Lid would definitely find things to enjoy here as well.

Rating: 7.25

Jack Alberson, FAC193

I have no prior knowledge of the band Tarentel—it was more or less something I stumbled upon that sounded interesting. Ephemera is a collection of songs they released on singles during the years 1999 and 2000 (plainly explained, I suppose, in its title).
“The Waltz” opens the collection, a beautiful piece which spends its first nine minutes or so in a similar style to Duluth minimalists Low before exploding into a decidedly more upbeat but nonetheless beautiful number. “Looking For Myself” certainly lives up to its name—metamorphosizing subtly throughout the song restlessly. The two tracks that make up “Two Sides of Myself” are probably the most amazing songs on here. The first would seem right in line with the other songs on the collection, but the second is an amazing glacial, ambient drone. Ephemera closes with the companion to “Looking For Things” called “Searching For Things”.

Music made to lose yourself in, Ephemera is a spacious, floaty listen that deserves your attention and clearly proves Tarentel to be auteurs of spacey music.