Introducing Rural Tapes

Inside the creative life behind Oneiric

I’m really happy to introduce Arne, from Rural Tapes to Clay Pipe Music. His new LP, Oneiric, is available for pre-order now and will be released on the 17th of October.

The second single from the album. Lingering Souls is a jubilant, iridescent slice of 60s-inspired pop featuring The Ladybug Transistor’s Gary Olson on vocals, it sneaks its way into the album like a sun-dappled postcard from another era — unexpected and uplifting.

Norwegian composer and multi-instrumentalist Rural Tapes (Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen) has been quietly carving out a distinctive space for himself and his music, weaving together analogue warmth and experimental textures with a keen ear for melody. Although he has played with numerous bands over the years, Rural Tapes is his own world – one that balances playfulness and precision, solitude and collaboration. With Oneiric, he invites listeners deeper into that world, turning to dreams for inspiration and drawing from the strange, surreal, and vividly colourful experiences that unfold within them.

A few years ago you left Oslo for the countryside and set up a studio in a barn. Where are you based now, and can you tell us a little about your space?

I`m based in Grimstad, in the south of Norway, not far from Lillesand where I grew up. Me and my family took over a farm about 11 years ago and left Oslo to focus more on creating arts and music, and also have the possibility to grow vegetables and keep animals. We've had pigs, and now we have hens and ducks, and I keep bees and make honey. My wife is a visual artist, a weaver, and we both have our workspaces in the barn. I`ve been collecting instruments and gear for the last 20 years, and it’s fantastic to have space big enough to have everything set up. This also allows me to buy instruments even if they are quite large. For example, I could never own a gamelan orchestra when I lived in Oslo. I collect all kinds of stuff - besides synthesisers, organs and drums, I also have half a brass band, loads of tape machines, different string instruments and so on. It really is a space that invites you to be creative, and every time I'm there I find inspiration to make something. I think that if you have a certain level of musicality, you can create music on all kinds of instruments; it`s just about being open-minded.

Your music has a beautiful, ‘tapey’ sound. Am I right in thinking that this, along with your location, inspired the project’s name?

Well, finding a name for this project was actually quite hard. I`m not a lyricist, but I enjoy playing with words for titles. Deciding a name to be stuck with the project forever though, was kind of hard. I texted back and forth with a good friend of mine about it, he`s a great lyricist and good with words. I tried to explain to him that I wanted a name that was a bit grounded. "Rural" was already in the loop, I like how the word sounds and looks, also a bit grounded, maybe. After a long discussion with different suggestions from both of us he came up with Rural Tapes, and I think it`s a good name for the project.

Can you tell us about your recording process? Do you work directly to tape, or do you mainly use it as an effect?

I do both. I am very much "plug and play", always in the now. I record mostly in Pro Tools, though I use the computer only as a recording and editing device. I hardly use plugins. Instead I route everything out from the computer to colour the sounds on hardware gear. I have tons of different tape devices; recorders, echos, dictaphones etc, and they all have their own colour. I spend most of my time on a track working with reamping, routing and colouring sounds. I do think the computer is great for having a visual overview, for composing and editing, but it stops there. Working with software bores me, hardware excites me, and I really need to be hands on, turning and twisting knobs and buttons to be connected to the music I make. Many of the tape machines I use are old and unstable; they almost have their own will. It`s like working with another musician sometimes, because the sound you recorded onto the tape is not necessarily the same that comes out from the speakers when playing the tape back. That way the machines also make decisions for me sometimes, and I love that aspect of the use of tapes.

On Hypermnesia, there’s a recording of an old man speaking in Norwegian. At the Bandcamp listening party, you explained how you found the recording and what he’s saying — could you share that story again for those who weren’t there?

Sure. So, I`m buying tape machines all the time. I barely can`t pass one without picking it up if I see some on ebay, thrift stores etc. It can be a reel to reel, a cassette dictaphone, everything. They all have something to them, and it doesn`t matter if they`re in bad condition, sometimes they sound even more beautiful then. Many of them come with old tapes. Sometimes when I buy tape machines, people just wanna get rid of everything, and they give me boxes full of tapes.

The voice on "Hypermnesia" is from a lost tape, a tape that maybe was either forgotten or lost by the owner at some point, who knows. Suddenly, by accident, it ended up in my studio. It`s a recording of an old man, I would guess about 80-90 years old, and the recordings are probably done between the 80s and the 90`s. He speaks with a very rare, beautiful Norwegian dialect, and tells a story from his first memory as a child. He says he must have been 4 or 5 years old, and he remembers he then realised and became aware of that he was a human being and was living in a wonderful world. He also tells stories about the work he and his family did on their farm at these times, wonderful everyday stories and memories from nice, sunny summer days, him and his mom bringing food to the workers, how the guys working on the farm took care of him, descriptions of the life they lived. It really is a treat, he actually speaks about memories from the early 1900`s, and that specific tape is full of stories from him and also his wife. And it doesn't stop there. They also sing psalms together, really touching. I`ve used some of these recordings for live performances, and would guess more of them will probably appear in future Rural Tapes work.

When working with recordings like this, I have to find an ethical line for what I can use. This content was so beautiful I wanted to share it, and I thought it was ok as long as there are no clear trace connecting to him. I was discussing this with a music friend of mine also, and he said: "This man and his stories lives on in your music now." And I thought that was really beautiful.

The album features two vocal collaborations — one with Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, and another with Gary Olson of Ladybug Transistor. How did these tracks come about?

I`ve been working with both of them previously; they`re good friends. Alexis, I first met at a festival in Vadsø, about as far north in Norway as you get, back in 2017. We performed together on some of his songs, with a wild bunch of great musicians such as John Paul Jones, Terry Edwards, Peter Buck, Tim Keegan etc.

Alexis first contributed to Rural Tapes with some mind-blowing Rhodes on my very first album. I`ve always had in mind it would be great to have him sing on something, but the songs haven`t quite been there yet. Then, last year, I was experimenting in my studio with a minimalist piece, a cranked piano loop, and I immediately thought: "I have to send this to Alexis!". I don`t really know why, but it just struck me that he may could be interested in it. 10 minutes later he answered this was totally up his ally and connected to things he was working with at that time, and would love to do something on it. He sent back beautiful vocal tracks for me to experiment further with, and together with the piano loops I think the end result became really special.

Gary has also contributed to Rural Tapes earlier, he plays trumpet on the first two albums. As one of my all time favorite singers, I`ve also wanted him to sing on a song for a long time, and finally I made the right song. I love his clear, deep voice and think it works great for the dreamy production on "Lingering Souls".