Memory Tapes

Memory Tapes is Dayve Hawk, former front man of Philadelphia-based Hail Social. What’s with the Y? I know Dave isn’t exotic – but really?

I first heard of Memory Tapes through the French electronic music record label Kitsune. The track Bicycle features on album 8 of Kitsune Maison and stands out as darkly haunting. It has film soundtrack written all over it, perhaps as a backdrop to a scene where a handsome man is cycling through the streets of Paris in the rain preoccupied with inner conflict, without knowing he is soon to come to a tragically romantic end.

The debut album Seek Magic, released in September 2009, is similarly evocative and soundscapy, but a little too samey. It’s hard to identify where one track ends and the other begins. My friend Rob disagrees – but he’s just wrong.

MT played Cargo so we went to see if the album enveloped the soul as a live performance.

Dayve was on the right of stage, the guy on drums to the left. On a large screen behind them were visuals of wallpaper patterned images throughout the set.

The ethereal electro pace and beat were consistent but didn’t ever seem to build into a sound that 'takes you there’. The lack of take-off affected the atmosphere and attention of the audience.

For me it’s the sort of music that you listen to in the background whilst doing something useful like reading in the bath or mowing the lawn. Just standing still didn’t seem like an effective use of time. Rob – again disagrees, but maybe he doesn’t have as many chores as I do.

What would have helped was some jolly inclusive banter or cheerleading robots, or nostalgic clips from films on the screens behind, but what was got was a very short set with no sense of warmth or cohesion between performer and audience.

Memory Tapes are perfect if you’re stoned, on your own looking at a Kaleidoscope feeling nostalgic and French, but as a live performance it needed that extra je ne sais quoi.

SET LIST:

Green Knight
Stop Talking
Plain Material
Graphics
Bicycle
Surfin
Swimming Field