As epic as it sounds: Gloom Balloon’s Patrick Tape Fleming plays 32 instruments, collaborates with 22 musicians on new album with 20-word title.

 Gaze at “Sgt. Pepper’s” jacket while absorbing “So Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost.”

 

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Patrick Tape Fleming of Gloom Balloon as photographed by Joelle Blanchard

 

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Fanatic Promotion · Gloom Balloon - Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset)

[STREAM]: https://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/gloom-balloon-long-distance-love-waterloo-sunset

 

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“Dropping in with a funky beat that brings to mind Bright Eyes with a hip-hop groove, Patrick Tape Fleming layers in soulful background vocals and harmonies along with a cacophony of instruments and musical effects to give the song a shimmering pop psychedelia.” Hear “Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset),” the first single from the epic new album by Gloom Balloon, out Sept. 25^th, 2020 via Grand Phony Music. Click to listen via Glide Magazine or at the link above.

 

 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI-8pRpqelQ

 

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Also now playing! Check out the lyric video for lead track “Tru Love Waits” off of Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost, which features what feels like a church choir preaching its only lines, “Don’t you ever say goodbye. Don’t you make your baby cry. True love waits, it never dies.” Streaming now at Ghettoblaster or the link above.

 

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Gloom Balloon | In The Press

 

“Full of surprises... Blindsides the listener in such a totally welcome way.” — SPIN

 

“Vaulted, vigorous indie-pop... into the experimental realm of spacey-jazz and electro-lounge grooves..” — Paste Magazine

 

“Deep soundscapes that play with lo-fi sonics and swelling strings. ” — Speak Into My Good Eye

 

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Gloom Balloon

So Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost

Sept. 25^th, 2020

(Grand Phony Music)

 

 

Track Listing:

01. Tru Love Waits (LYRIC VIDEO)

02. Bergman Bach Rock (Not Burt Bacharach)

03. All Is Phair

04. Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunrise)

05.. Beer Friend Forever

06. A Second Chance

07. In Our Dreams We Are Beautiful and Free

08. Did Anybody Leave Any Toothpaste Here?

09. Burnt Bridge Over Troubled Waters

10. Nicotine Glaze

11. Les Miserable

12. The Grass Is Always Green

13. Credits Roll Up, Tears Roll Down, Your Love Is Like The Sound Of The Rain Hitting The Ground (STREAM | VIDEO)

14. Advice On How To Write A Song

15. Sweet Women With The Sepia Stare

16. Bat Stick Crazy

17. Libras Don't Like To Be Alone (Except Logan)

18. Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset) (STREAM)

19. All My Feelings For You

20. Don't Call It A Comeback

 

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Gloom Balloon | About

 

In name alone, Gloom Balloon represents grand ups and grand downs.

 

The new album from Des Moines, Iowa-based mastermind Patrick Tape Fleming does, too. From its Sgt. Pepper’s-riffing cover (a theme of visual homage that has stretched across three full-lengths) to its compelling short story of a title (So Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost), to the record’s sweeping opening track, “Tru Love Waits,” featuring what feels like a church choir preaching its only lines, “Don’t you ever say goodbye. Don’t you make your baby cry. True love waits, it never dies.”

 

Tape Fleming lists no less than 32 instruments attributed to himself (including Static Electricity, Box of Bulbs, and of course, Balloons) in the album’s liner notes, before going on to rattle off another 22 participants in this recording. At a time when we as a people are isolated, and artists are making recordings that reflect isolation, Gloom Balloon’s latest (Grand Phony, Sept. 25^th) sounds communal, and that’s needed.

 

On the nearly six-minute epic “Credits Roll Up, Tears Run Down, Your Love is Like the Sound of the Rain Hitting the Ground,” Tape Fleming breaks your heart by letting you into his: “I know what it feels like to put my arms around you. But I don’t know what it feels like to make it last.”

 

“Music has always been my way of explaining and dealing with feelings,” he says. “So that’s a reason for all of the music references and homages.”

 

True. In addition to the brain game songwriters hall of fame cover art, Tape Fleming’s knowledge of modern music history makes for a fun game in the grooves, too.

 

“Most of the songs have references to song lyrics or the musicians that made them,” he says. “From ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks to ‘Waterloo’ by ABBA, and the lyric, “All Liz Phair in love and war when you fuck and run,” in the song “All Is Phair”.

 

“Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunset)” is in fact the album’s first single, a funkier, more optimistic version of the tonal lament that is the song’s companion piece ‘Long Distance Love (Waterloo Sunrise),’ which appears earlier in the album.

 

Tape Fleming sings, “Long distance love is not the worst. But it always makes a young lover’s heart feel like it’s going burst.”

 

With the tune coming late in the record, it kind of saves the day and reminds that balloon follows gloom and not the other way around.

 

Bergman Uses Bach To Get His Point Across, I Feel Like I Have Chosen Rock But At What A Cost, the third album by Gloom Balloon, is out Sept. 25^th, 2020 on Grand Phony.

 

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Gloom Balloon | Links

 

ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : SPOTIFY : GRAND PHONY

 

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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact

 

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