You're Home by Sir Tad

Nostalgia comes in multiple forms - words, sounds, people. The directions to a place you haven't been in years, walking by a boombox playing on an apartment windowsill. Remembering love, and remembering loss. At times 'You're Home' feels like you're wandering around a carnival taking in all the lights and sounds on a visceral level, too much going on to form more than an idea of a landscape around you. Then there are the slower moments, not in their pace but in how they make you consider the moment. Eventually the tape stops but the feeling takes longer to leave, you're sitting with yourself and paying attention to how you feel. After a bit, you start over at the beginning to learn a little more.

The first single off the album, also the title track, "You're Home" feels like a sunrise on a hazy morning, when you're not sure the fog is going to lift. Like a train slowly leaving the station to make its way down the coast. Like standing at the counter making coffee and looking forward to a day full of possibilities, of making new memories and reflecting on the old.

As is made clear on the second track, Tynan is the guy. Through his work pulling loops from various home recordings of family and friends, you can feel an undeniable human presence throughout the album. Loops and repetition are, after all, the majority of interactions with the people we love. Maybe it's more accurate to say that the nostalgia present here is really just love, looped over and over. It's rare we get to fully experience the way other people feel, but 'You're Home' is undeniably the product of the artist, and to get to see someone's memories is one of the best things in the world.

This album is dedicated to Tynan's brother, Max Krakoff, who died unexpectedly March 22, 2022 at the age of 35. Max can be heard talking/singing on "Break A Leg" (circa 1994) and faintly in the background on "The Door Was Locked" (circa 2004).

Sir Tad is Tynan Krakoff (autoharp, Magnus electric organ, melodica, Casiotone MT-30, circuit bent keyboards, microKORG, Yamaha PSR-310, Duofone TAD-112A answering machine, tape players, tape loops, Atamatone pink guy, Stylophone, melodica, rock tumbler, Zoom H2n)

Vocal samples collected from friends & family 1969, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2020, and unknown years. Boxus plays bass on "We've Got it From Here"

Recorded mostly July 2021 - February 2022 to Tascam Portastudio 424mkII 4 track cassette + Tascam Digital Portastudio DP-01FX 8 track

Mixed 2022, Mastered 2022 by Michael Southard
Art by Purple Akronym Art Collective (@purpleakronym on IG)
Album blurb by Brian Bizier

Tynan Tapes Temporal 2022
tynantapes AT gmail DOT com


Reviews:
"You’re Home finds Sir Tad rifling through decades of family memories such as old answering machine messages about taking care of neighbors’ cats. The echoing wheeze of a chord organ and a shuffling rhythm welcome you like a warm blanket on the opening title track. There’s a tinge of sadness to the winsome vibes of You’re Home, though, as the album is dedicated to the memory of Max Krakoff, the brother of Tynan Krakoff a.k.a. Sir Tad, and Max is featured as a child on “Break a Leg”, providing his own rendition of the Kit-Kat jingle among other charming moments. Old keyboards and tape players are certainly at the center here, but occasionally augmented by the majestic zing of autoharp (such as on “Bird of Paradise”). While Sir Tad takes a few detours like the frenetic “Slitherin’ Slop”, You’re Home is a web of kind reminiscences, some seem personal, others less so. But all moments captured anywhere were personal to someone, at some time. And that’s the effect of listening to You’re Home. The personal is still personal, even if it’s not personal to you or me, and Krakoff invites us to experience his personal. It doesn’t get better than the lilting “Bloom like a Highway”, where Krakoff builds up reedy melodica and stumbling keyboards around a processed recording of someone giving driving directions. Despite being offered directions, I don’t know where I’m going when I’m listening, but I enjoy the moment while I’m in it. Maybe, as Sir Tad suggests, I’m home. "
- Auxiliary Out https://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/2023/05/spring-2023.html

"The other project of Tynan Krakoff is just as fixated on hazy memories as Meadow Argus, but instead of long, disintegrating loop-based pieces, this one works in more digestible pop song-length snippets. Using autoharp, melodica, Stylophone, lots of cheap keyboards, and various tape loops, answering machine messages, and home recordings dating back to the 1960s, he makes avant-pop dream scenes which reenact moments shared with family members. “You’re Home” is a supremely comforting opener, with melodica waves stretched out into accordion-like drones, and a rolling, dubby rhythm. “Quinn” is splashed with an array of scattered keyboard melodies, adding a sharp playfulness to Odd Nosdam-like zoned-out beats. “Bird of Paradise” is gleeful autoharp psychedelia, and “Break a Leg” is much more sorrowful than you might expect for a song based around a recording of a kid singing the KitKat jingle (the voice in question is Tynan’s brother, who died unexpectedly earlier this year). “Potential” pulls samples from a radio talk show discussing misunderstandings of communism and the rise of fascism. While this is one of the album’s more serious moments, it’s immediately followed by the malfunctioning tape whimsy of “Slitherin’ Slop”. “Tumbled Down” is a minimal synth comedown with more of that luscious melodica." - The Answer is in the Beat https://theanswerisinthebeat.net/2022/05/15/sir-tad-youre-home-tape-tynan-tapes-temporal-2022/

"Tynan Krakoff uses nostalgia as a way to express love as a looped experience. As Sir Tad, he trades in repetitive melodies and noises that seem to somersault out of an old toy kaleidoscope. His latest collection, You’re Home, is dedicated to his brother, Max, who passed away in March of this year. The songs inhabiting this world are filled with vocal samples from various decades, familial sounds that drive home the point that looking back is simply a way of reliving our affection for something, for some. Culling together a swamp of melodica, autoharp, tape loops, answering machines, and the odd rock tumbler, Krakoff has fashioned a lived-in environment that speaks to his need for closure amid terrible heartache. Equal parts Saturday night carnival and laboratory filled with experimental pop trinkets, this album is an intimate look into how he processes grief, and the joy and pain that comes from that process. Listening to You’re Home is akin to flipping through a scrapbook of his life, and he’s given us permission to witness all the most private thoughts contained therein." - Cassette Culture, Beats Per Minute https://beatsperminute.com/cassette-culture-may-2022/