The Music Tapes were quiet for a number of years before "Music Tapes For Clouds and Tornadoes" was released on August 19, 2008 via Merge Records. It contained 14 songs, two with videos. Some of these songs existed back around the time of "1st Imaginary Symphony for Nomad". The Music Tapes played Athens Popfest 2008 and participated in the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour that fall, which was organized by Koster himself. In the winter, Julian Koster performed some Music Tapes songs on a caroling tour (see Julian Koster for more information). Merge also released "The Singing Saw at Christmastime" on October 7. The album featured 12 Christmas songs performed on singing saw and was released under Julian Koster's name rather than The Music Tapes. Following "Music Tapes For Clouds and Tornadoes", the band began work on a tripartite "Third Imaginary Symphony", announcing that "Mary's Voice" would be the first of the three albums. The album was preceded in 2011 by "Purim's Shadows (The Dark Tours the World)", an EP including the single "Nantasket". The band was chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he curated in March 2012 in Minehead, England. Merge released "Mary's Voice" on September 4, 2012. According to Koster, the album was written and recorded in a carnival tent. Koster brought a larger version of said tent, the Traveling Imaginary, on the road for performances beginning in the winter of 2012-2013. The Traveling Imaginary is said to be the first incarnation of a series of larger-scale Music Tapes projects undertaken by the Orbiting Human Circus, a newly official artistic foundation led by Koster as Artistic Director. As "Mary's Voice" is said to be the first of three albums comprising the "Third Imaginary Symphony", further albums from the series are anticipated. The band's album "The 2nd Imaginary Symphony for Cloudmaking", a story album consisting of the story of a boy named Nigh, who lives with his grandmother who is blind, was completed in 2001 but not officially released until 2017. The album features instrumentation by Koster to back the spoken word recording by Brian Dewan. The album has actually been finished since 2001 and put through two CD-R circulations and played on WNYC's Spinning on Air, but had yet to see an official release until 15 years later.