Product Description
2. As one aflame laid bare by desire — part 2 04:25
3. Given [1. the waterfall 2. the illuminating gas] 04:22
4. entr’acte [the garden awaits us] 01:34
5. Tell me you’ve taken another 05:21
6. entr’acte [the carnival barker] 01:02
7. dream 01:57
8. the Apotheosis 06:21
9. Russia 06:40
10. Your one wish 01:29
11. Dulcinea 06:17
12. the Green box 06:39
13. Denouement / denouncement 06:59
14. the Passage 16:16
15. Digital Part 2 (Bonus tracks) 00:05
16. As one aflame laid bare by desire — part 1 [guitar & flute] 02:38
17. As one aflame laid bare by desire — part 2 [early instrumental demo] 04:30
18. entr’acte [the garden awaits us] [early mix] 01:39
19. Tell me you’ve taken another [vocals & flute] 05:22
20. entr’acte [the carnival barker] [early instrumental demo] 00:58
21. dream [vocals] 01:57
22. Russia [early instrumental demo] 06:39
23. Your one wish [early instrumental demo] 00:54
24. Dulcinea [live backing track] 06:16
25. the Green box [early instrumental demo] 06:49
26. Denouement / denouncement [early instrumental demo] 06:51
27. the Passage [early instrumental demo] 26:05
28. the Passage [vicki isolated] 02:11
29. Sequence #21 [unused] 00:48
30. Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kijjé Suite, Op. 60: II. Romance 01:19
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Purchase in Europe for fast, inexpensive shipping:
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Limited edition of 500 2LP / 200 3CD
Genres: Ethereal, darkwave, neo-classical
RIYL: This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Nature and Organisation, Desertshore-era Nico
L.A. Weekly: “A symphonic mix of poetic vocals and ethereal atmosphere.”
Ethereal, gothic and ambient entwine with poignant and powerful lyrical insight. Released 26 years ago in January of ’99, As one aflame laid bare by desire is black tape for a blue girl’s 7th album of romantic darkness and literary introspection. As blacktape closes in on their 2026 40th anniversary, founder Sam Rosenthal is restoring and remastering the band’s catalog. Aflame is available in a striking 2LP edition and very limited 3CD edition.
Rosenthal funded this reissue with the support of the band’s fans via a successful Kickstarter campaign. He says, “I’m thrilled that so many want to see Aflame available in new formats, sounding better than ever! I remixed two songs to bring the vocals up; going back to the original DAT sources makes the whole album so much warmer and richer. Martin Bowes’ remastering enhances Julianna Towns’ sultry vocals, Oscar Herrera’s passionate voice, Vicki Richards’ dramatic violins and cover star Lisa Feuer’s heartfelt flute. And of course my drifting electronics and soul-searching lyrics.
“Interestingly, 4 of the top-10 blacktape tracks at Spotify are from Aflame. “Dulcinea” is the most played track. 47% of listeners are younger than 27. It’s rewarding to have so many new listeners for blacktape’s music, especially this album that was released before many were born!”
Penthouse: Rosenthal’s black tape for a blue girl embraces Brian Eno’s ambient ideas along with sensual and enchanting vocals.
spiderbytes: As one aflame laid bare by desire proves that melancholy waters run deep. Perhaps not as gloomy, and certainly not as maudlin and angry as some previous releases, angst as art is still the source of fuel for Rosenthal and crew’s perpetual dark flame. In fact, the art aspect is intensified as Sam laces threads from dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s artworks and literature into blacktape’s gauzy fabric. Think modern Gothic chamber music with some ambient/electronic overtones.
Magnet Magazine: A lot of As one aflame is damn near brilliant in its artistic reach and dramatic scope. With otherworldly electronics, lone violin and weeping flute all draped around the solemn (electronic) whispers of Rosenthal (and the evocative voices of Julianna Towns and Oscar Herrera), blacktape provides a most ghostly encounter. At times, blacktape echoes the romantic indulgence of This Mortal Coil, with haunting female vocals and ornate neoclassicism juxtaposed against an ominous, frozen landscape of strings and keyboards; Rosenthal’s art achieves both an eerie sonic calm and an intense degree of emotional extravagance. AS ONE AFLAME can’t be dismissed as a misguided attempt to invigorate the well-preserved corpse of the darkwave. This stuff is quite guided and very much alive.
L.A. Weekly: Clearly, labels like ‘gothic,’ ‘death rock’ and ‘gloom’ are more about the mood, the fashions and the feelings the music provides. Stretching the goth genre even further, black tape for a blue girl incorporate orchestral elegance with a New Age-ish spirituality and literary introspection. Their latest As one aflame laid bare by desire is a symphonic mix of poetic vocals and ethereal atmosphere. Yes, it’s dark, but instead of wallowing spooky pretense, the band — which features a flutist, violinist, acoustic guitar and keyboards — focuses on instrumentation and conceptual themes. Far from depressing, they bring beauty and depth to a genre known more for sorrow and menace.
Los Angeles Times — Orange County Edition: Best Bets Orange County Today. black tape for a blue girl, a trio of flute, viola and keyboards is gothic in the traditional, medieval European sense, making ethereal music that moves like a candle flickering through a dark catacomb. blacktape’s return offers a brand of ambient pop seldom heard locally.
Philadelphia City Paper: Ambient electronic master Sam Rosenthal and his usual consorts, flautist Lisa Feuer, violinist Vicki Richards, vocalists Julianna Towns and Oscar Herrera, create ethereal chamber music. Like Dead Can Dance, black tape for a blue girl dramatically flirts with symphonic decay. The music is brightly lit and subtly melodic; forlorn chords arch and bend, the drama giving way to auburn radiance. Lyrics are brief, flashed snapshots concentrating on desire’s transitive elements. Passages of chamber orchestration are held together by Rosenthal’s ambient drone of electronic instrumentation, tape loops and verbal rumblings. black tape for a blue girl have reached a perfect spot – a record where darkness and light play as one, where ethereal music and personal obsessions meet and mingle with passion and dignity.
San Francisco Chronicle: On blacktape’s seventh release, founding member Sam Rosenthal collaborates with gifted vocalist Julianna Towns to create something of a concept album. Aflame explores psychological aspects of love, lust and passion, from the first blush of infatuation through lovers being stripped bare of their physical and emotional trappings to the inevitable end of the relationship. Through spare orchestration and intriguing storytelling, they create an arresting and thought-provoking storyline.
Julianna Towns • vocals & guitar
Oscar Herrera • vocals
Vicki Richards • violin
Lisa Feuer • flute
Sam Rosenthal • vocals, harmonium & electronics
2LP VINYL:
PRO422-1 617026042213
• 140-gram vinyl 2LP
• Limited to 500
• LP1: Gold & White. LP2: Gold & White w/black splatters
• Jacket signed on back by Sam
• Includes 4-page lyric/photo book
• Bonus Track
• Remastered from original DATs by Martin Bowes of Attrition
• Side A: As one aflame laid bare by desire • Given [1. the waterfall 2. the illuminating gas] • entr’acte [the garden awaits us] • Tell me you’ve taken another /// Side B: entr’acte [the carnival barker] • dream • the Apotheosis • Russia • Your one wish /// Side C: Dulcinea • the Green box • Denouement / denouncement< /// Side D: the Passage • BONUS TRACK As one aflame laid bare by desire [part 2] (Live in Norwalk CT, july 29, 1998)
3CD Edition:
PRO422-2 617026042220
• 3CD in 8-panel Digipak
• Limited to 200
• Disc 1: Aflame remastered edition / Disc 2: 1999 master / Disc 3: Sam Rosenthal: the Passage
• Disc 1 is remastered from original DATs by Martin Bowes of Attrition
• Signed on back by Sam
“GIVEN” VIDEO:
A fan-created Black Tape For A Blue Girl video at youTube for the track “Givem.” It looks great with footage by Cottonbro Studio. SPOILERS: They end up in a threesome! 😜
Reviews Editor –
From A Pessimist is Never Disappointed
In those pre-internet days, one had to rely on word of mouth, or maybe a cool record store employee to find something awesome that might have flown under your personal radar. The British music press, and American zines helped too. For me, working at a couple of cool record stores from 1987 to 1990, and thoroughly obsessed with releases on 4AD, I naturally gravitated to anything that looked like it might sound the same.
I can’t remember the first Projekt release I purchased, but I’m pretty sure it must have been an album from Black Tape for a Blue Girl. I can remember that Tower Records seemed to put these releases in with the imports, even though the imprint was an American independent label. So maybe in my quest to find something from 4AD, that’s how I stumbled upon this label and band 30+ years ago. The artwork and song titles certainly seemed to suggest the same vibe as the Ivo-signed groups I was already in thrall to.
The Projekt label is still going strong and has just reissued one of the best albums from Black Tape for a Blue Girl, As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire. This 1999 album from label boss Sam Rosenthal and the band members here — Julianna Towns (vocals & guitar), Oscar Herrera (vocals), Vicki Richards (violin), Lisa Feuer (flute) — is a sort of career peak for the collective, and one of those releases that reminds a listener just how rich, varied, and complex the material on the imprint was. (It still is, obviously, as the label is still releasing music in a similar vein.)
The music here is certainly darkwave — a term that might have originated because of this label — but it’s also more expansive still. From the emotive Marc Almond-ish “Tell Me You’ve Taken Another” (one of Oscar Herrera’s best vocal performances here), to the classical stylings of “Given”, this remains ambitious music. One can certainly trace parts of this back to the first two This Mortal Coil records, or formative releases from Dead Can Dance — “The Green Box” sounds very much like the instrumentals on Within the Realm of a Dying Sun (1987), and I mean that as high praise — but Sam Rosenthal is pursuing a personal muse here that sets this entirely apart from any American peers in the Nineties. From the aching intimacy of “Your One Wish” to the spacious “Dulcinea” which undulates under the vocals of Towns, the tunes here have a windswept lushness that pleasantly surprises still; I can play this now and remember why I liked this band so much when I was a younger person. And, having had decades of further listening to a wide range of stuff, I can hear now how adept Rosenthal and crew were at drawing in disparate pieces of inspiration to create this vision of a record. It’s hardly just an American spin on 4AD.
The 2025 digital edition of As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire features the new remaster of the 1999 record, demos and backing tracks and takes, and a much longer demo version of “The Passage” from the album. There’s a wealth of bonus material here, and the assorted bits do more to advance the idea that this was really a peak for the band, with Black Tape for a Blue Girl moving to a broader sound here, without sacrificing the poetic and emotional depths of the earlier records. Black Tape for a Blue Girl always made music that was a bit timeless, and outside of trends, and 26 years later, that is very much appreciated. The charms of As One Aflame Laid Bare Be Desire remain intact, and the poetic and emotive sound of this group still manages to stir something borderline profound in a listener.