The Late Call

The last time I visited Tapete Records' website was ages ago, until I checked it last week. With "The Late Call" as a result. The Late Call from Stockholm creates an intimate and atmosphere on his album, that seems to give you an insight on Johannes Mayer's lovelife, with answered and unanswered love and added ecstasy by acoustic instrumentals.

Leaving Notes is definitive proof that a long distance relationship leaves its mark. Leaving Notes is also proof that you don’t need much more than some acoustic instruments and good songs to create a staggeringly brilliant pop album. In the time spent waiting for the late phone calls from his girlfriend, Stockholm singer/songwriter Johannes Mayer, who performs under the name The Late Call, appears to have frequently reached for his guitar producing the tangible emotions contained on this record. Through the first notes you are drawn into a very special atmosphere and you will quickly understand that what you’re hearing is not another pop record constructed on the drawing-board of a hit factory. This feeling is real and does not let go of you over the full length of the album. It creates an intimacy and gives you that goose pimple feeling one usually only associates with listening to Nick Drake, Damien Rice or José Gonzalez. The eleven songs manage to convey the bittersweet feeling between the farewell, the departure and the arrival which the 27-year old knows only too well. During the recordings, emphasis has been placed on the use of acoustic instruments creating The Late Call’s warm and distinctive sound. “Thinking what to say” is carried by a vibraphone while in the background an old piano is playing one of those melodies which won’t leave your head and will follow you through your day. Accordions and harmoniums often pave the way to lighter acoustics and the great string arrangements such as those on “Cards on the table” and “The Summertime” speak of a musical aesthetic that is impossible to resist. “Leaving Notes” sounds like a manifesto against modern Saturday-night-partying and is a rare musical find.

@ Stockholm, Sweden
♫ Acoustic, Folk, Pop
♥ Cards on the Table (mp3)
▸ Myspace