Review: Love Letter – “It Brought Us Something We Had to Know”

Love Letter is a collection of ambient and experimental tracks with two current releases on cassette through Rok Lok Records, the first of those being the tape “It Brought Us Something We Had to Know,” which is four tracks of wistful instrumentals washed out with plenty of reverberating feedback and moments of poignant-feeling clarity of sound.

Beginning with the track “Rising Into the Treetops,” a clear tone of a feeling of nostalgia or faraway sadness, coupled with a certain hypnotic grace is set forth by the layers of intensely-droney sound and juxtaposing moments of crisp, minimal instrumentals. The second track, “Ursa Minor” carries on with this same tone and yet defines itself from the prior track by the song’s melodic quality holding its own against the crashes of feedback. The third track, “Heaven Falling (Ashes Rising)” shares the balanced atmosphere of melody and drone as “Ursa Minor,” this time though, with perhaps an even more melodic nature to its sound coupled with an almost triumphant quality to the notes of droning instrumentals. The final track, “Joe Pipkin All Tucked in His Bed” begins with crisp, somber notes and carries on a minimalistic feel while a soft voice begins reading an excerpt from Ray Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree” in the background, creating an eerie yet harmonious feeling. The track brings the tape to a close with its signature waves of humming feedback and cutting drones.

Overall from start to finish, the cassette is a beautiful sound experience and is the perfect kind of thing you’d want to listen to on a grey, rainy day or as the soundtrack to an aimlessly wandering drive around town on a cold winter night.

“It Brought Us Something We Had to Know” is available on cassette and digitally in mp3 and FLAC formats online through their record label. The cassette is transparent yellow comes with hand-painted watercolor labels. This is one any fan of ambient, drone, experimental or even classical sounds needs in their collection!

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Written by:

CEO//contributing writer//cassette collector//outdated physical media enthusiast