Album: Night Tapes - portals//polarities

“Helix” is the ninth track on portals//polarities. With this dramatic, acid house-leaning slab of shoegazing-infused electropop, Night Tapes make the case that they’re the real deal.

Up to this point, their pop-inclined electronica has embraced motorik (opening track “Enter”), breakbeat-infused chillwave (“Television”), vaporous quasi-new wave pop (“Swordsman”) and trip-hop (“Babygirl (Like No1 Else”). With so much going on stylistically, it is tough getting a handle on Night Tapes.

The trio are Max Doohan, Sam Richards and Iiris Vesik. Their material is jointly composed, though main vocalist Vesik is responsible for the lyrics. Night Tapes first surfaced via a cassette-only EP issued in 2019. Since then, a steady trickle of releases – on cassette, seven-inch or digital-only. portals//polarities is their first album. There seems to be a focus on America – a lengthy string of US dates is in the diary for the near future. With their resemblance to America’s more direct Magdalena Bay, it’s a path which makes sense.

Before Night Tapes Doohan was the drummer of Nocturne, a band operating from South London’s Goldsmiths, part of the University of London. The quartet was slanted towards the Radiohead and Talk Talk end of things. Though based in London, the translucently voiced Vesik is Estonian and – as “Iiris” – signed with Virgin and then the Universal Music Group. The former issued her (great) solo album The Magic Gift Box in 2012. It melded synth-pop inclinations with modern, poppy R&B. She was the first Estonian artist to sign with a multi-national imprint. Now, with all this behind her, she is clearly in a different phase of her relationship with music.

portals//polarities is self recorded. Some field recordings are incorporated, and what is heard was constructed on laptops. Despite an attractive muzziness, the album feels very digital. There does not seem to be any use of a recording studio or external collaborators such as a producer. Individually, tracks work but the aesthetic hop-scotching results in a disjointed listen. Nonetheless, Night Tapes are one to watch out for.

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