Cassettes

I know that noise/drone and metal artists and labels are really into releasing music on cassette these days. But is anybody else, in any other genre - i.e. reggae, indie, rap?

Washed Out

it's so annoying

I'm surprised more current CDs aren't promoted via cassettes.

Being as how they are more difficult to upload to sharing places.

It's been my suspicious that that's why the noise underground has been (As far as I can tell) tranisitioning from CD to CASS so much lately.

sorry for all the spelling errors in that post

xpost

The cassette underground is huge these days. Favors the experimental psych side of the indie scene, but not exclusively. Nice to be able to sprawl out over a 40 minute side....Usually no more than 500 copies.

Many sites devoted to the cassette scene, and a few broadcasts/podcasts.

http://www.dadahack.com/tap3/

TAP3 is to be released via the usual download channels and also in a brand new/revamped/old format.

the name seems to indicate that the format will be a variation on the cassette.

also, james rutledge/pedro did one of those ultra limited things :

http://www.l-o-a-f.com/greatecstasy.htm

(re filesharing) It's been my suspicious that that's why the noise underground has been (As far as I can tell) tranisitioning from CD to CASS so much lately.

Rapidshare etc makes so much sense in a scene revolving around churning out monthly releases in editions of 10 which sell out within a week that I had sort of assumed the artists didn't mind, but maybe they are sad for the days when only their ten hippest friends could know what was what

Yeah, cassettes are definitely the new vinyl these days. Which is why I'm glad I just went ahead and hooked up my old tape player directly to my computer.

(Related to that, what's been fun was converting a lot of old tapes I had around from friends and bands that I hadn't listened to in years -- being able to put them in rotation on the computer may go against the intent of the release but it's a heck of a lot easier to get to the song you really want to hear now.)

(plus all those lovely mixtapes I made from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties)

It's been my suspicious that that's why the noise underground has been (As far as I can tell) tranisitioning from CD to CASS so much lately.

― LAMBDA LAMBDA LANDA (Beatrix Kiddo), Wednesday, 10 February 2010 14:19 (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Anythng released on cassette by someone who is actually cared about will still get uploaded sooner or later

Cassettes never died, man! We did!

Bitte Orca and latest Deerhunter EP came out on cassette. I got em.

oh and Sunn did a live grimmrobes cassette recently too.

We just did some Yummy Fur cassettes to be sold at their. Eventually there'll be real reissues, but we wanted a quick, from-the-hip, fun bit of tour merch on hand when they played. They sound great, at least the first 50 times you play them....

to be sold at their shows, I should say

judging from the gas stations of rural america, the greatest hits of lynyrd skynyrd are primarily distributed via cassette

This might be a "no shit" statement but I think a lot of current cassette culture is a response to the Internet making it easier for bands to distribute their music around the world without being on a label. The whole indie/punk aesthetic was built on this concept of the struggle of being underground; now that there isn't really an underground anymore, bands have to intentionally handicap themselves, work to make themselves obscure and hidden, to be part of this idea. In addition, from my personal experience, part of playing music are the competing urges to want to be more popular and also to want to be more private/hidden. I can see how releasing music on cassette in the 2000s is attractive in the sense of making yourself deliberately obscure.

well said

although being on a label with other bands, even if it's cassette only, might be a step up for a band with no recognition or reputation other than a myspace page

cassette labels vs digital-only labels

both!

i currently have my walkman hooked up to speakers at home. shit sounds good.

This might be a "no shit" statement but I think a lot of current cassette culture is a response to the Internet making it easier for bands to distribute their music around the world without being on a label. The whole indie/punk aesthetic was built on this concept of the struggle of being underground; now that there isn't really an underground anymore, bands have to intentionally handicap themselves, work to make themselves obscure and hidden, to be part of this idea. In addition, from my personal experience, part of playing music are the competing urges to want to be more popular and also to want to be more private/hidden. I can see how releasing music on cassette in the 2000s is attractive in the sense of making yourself deliberately obscure.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 6:05 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This was sort of talked about a year ago approx: Cassette Only Labels S/D

This might be a "no shit" statement but I think a lot of current cassette culture is a response to the Internet making it easier for bands to distribute their music around the world without being on a label. The whole indie/punk aesthetic was built on this concept of the struggle of being underground; now that there isn't really an underground anymore, bands have to intentionally handicap themselves, work to make themselves obscure and hidden, to be part of this idea. In addition, from my personal experience, part of playing music are the competing urges to want to be more popular and also to want to be more private/hidden. I can see how releasing music on cassette in the 2000s is attractive in the sense of making yourself deliberately obscure.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:05 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

i pretty much disagree with this. if anything releasing cassettes is a way to revive the value of physicality in a time when bands are often nothing more than an mp3 and a couple jpegs on someone's ipod; some will upload a cassette to their ipods, but i think the point isn't that they want to be obscured but they want to make something people actually want to have. obv people itt aren't interested in owning cassettes, but i don't know, a lot of other people are. i've got a friend who runs a cassette label, and he sells out every release of usually 100-200 within a month or two. i think itunes is fucking stupid, and although i spend most of my music allocated money on vinyl, i buy cassettes pretty often. my band couldn't afford to make a record so we made a tape, it was really cheap and it sounds pretty good.

if anything releasing cassettes is a way to revive the value of physicality in a time when bands are often nothing more than an mp3 and a couple jpegs on someone's ipod; some will upload a cassette to their ipods, but i think the point isn't that they want to be obscured but they want to make something people actually want to have.

That was my thought -- seems to come down to whether the 'hand-crafted' cassette package is seen to have the same value as limited-release vinyl or the like. (A number of cassettes I own were released in non-standard cases -- paper packaging, etc.)

Wanting to be obscure and wanting to revive physicality are not mutually exclusive. I don't think the factors I mentioned are the only factors, just some thoughts I had.

This band from Milwaukee, Catacombz, put out a tape called SOUL BEATS and it is the best thing I've heard so far this year, it rules.
I love cassettes, always have. It's the format I grew up with.

Wanting to be obscure and wanting to revive physicality are not mutually exclusive

I'd go so far as to say that your cassette-prizing types very often have a desire for both

xp n/a - i know, i just don't think the desire to be obscure is a real consideration for these bands. all the bands i know who release on cassette want to tour as far and as long as possible, and want their records to be heard by as many people as possible. i think the diy underground ideal of playing to a couple dozen people in a small space is a myth and most bands are always trying to expand their fanbase. that said, if you're a garage punk band it's pretty clear that there's a cap to the level of popularity you'll get, it's not like releasing everything on glimmering jewel cased cd's is going to be a huge market push. red mass, a local punk band who're on a few pretty well known labels, put out an album/ep on cd and if anything that hurt their sales.

Uh I kind of agreed with your last post but I think you're going off track here. I think having a physical item is a factor in cassette releases, but if a band really wants their records to be heard by as many people as possible, cassettes are not the way to go.

And to be clear, I don't think "the desire to be obscure" is necessarily a thought-out, conscious decision behind releasing cassettes, but I think it's part of the impulse and the attraction.

ok, i agree with that. all i meant is most bands releasing cassettes in 2010 are probably already relegated to obscurity simply because of the music they make, and in most cases the scenes they roll in will be one where peole buy cassettes. it's more of a communal 'we are all into this obscure shit' vibe than a 'how limited and inconvenient can we make this release' thing. that's what you meant, right?

i still don't know why dirty projectors released a cassette tho

And speak of the devil:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/news/burger-records-cassettes-reviv/

"how limited and inconvenient can we make this release" is a factor on some level. I had a friend in a noise band who released an "album" (I think it was like 10 minutes long) on 3.5-inch floppy disc.

hahahaha

Fucked Up put out something on 8-track a year or two back

Pulled together some quick thoughts for Chain of Knives:

http://chainofknives.tumblr.com/post/382414277/cassettes-are-the-new-vinyl

I have some friends that have tons of shit recorded. When they went on tour last summer they threw some unreleased stuff, and some songs from various compilations they've done, on to some cassettes and sold em. I thought that was a cool thing to do, plus it sounds good.

There need to be (more?) VHS releases. The tape is thicker and longer than cassettes, so better quality and longer running time and ultimate obscurity = WIN WIN WIN

I've been convinced that the ultimate format for obscure annoying hipness would be laser disc. You'd have to track down a high school science teacher to play it.

LD-R

deep house producer Lerosa released a cassette-only album last year, "a deliberate move by the label owner to allow for more freedom to the artist, less financial risk by label while still producing a tangible object"

review & streaming audio here: http://www.littlewhiteearbuds.com/lerosa-dual-nature/

cant wait until i have to pick up new ambient/drone releases on dictabelt

Just noticed that there's going to be an EMP presentation on this from Michael Mannheimer:

"Big Wave Rider: Cassette Tapes, Inverted Nostalgia, and the Creation of Glo-fi"

As we approach the end of the aughts—a decade where the fundamental way we listen to music changed, one MP3 blog at a time—an interesting phenomenon bubbled up in the underground: a yearning for a recorded medium that went out of style 20 years ago. Looking into the past for inspiration is hardly original, but when Dirty Projectors sent out advanced copies of their new record, Bitte Orca, the fact that it came packaged as a tape was more than a novelty gag. Last summer, a whole wave of hazy, nostalgic music popped up, bedroom recordings from artists in New Jersey and Texas, complete with bullshit genres (glo-fi! chillwave! disco-jangle?) that were more almost as much fun to coin as they were to listen to. Music trends are always circular, but what is it about this particular scene that lusts for a time before everyone recorded on a MacBook? The one common thread (er, spool) between all these disparate recordings is a medium that, until the last few years, was seen as even more outdated than a VHS: the cassette tape.

In this lecture, I will examine the rise and resurgence of tape culture by talking to a host of underground tape labels and distributors—including Portland, Oregon''s Eggy Records and Iowa City''s Night-People—about releasing music via an archaic medium in an era of instant gratification. As technology advances, why are we continually looking to the past? Is the medium the message, or is it the music that really matters?

i like "but what is it about this particular scene that lusts for a time before everyone recorded on a MacBook?" but i'm not sure the writer gets just how depressing and absurd the idea of recording onto a laptop is for a lot of people. it doesn't necessarily always sound good, but recording onto cassette forces you to work with your sound in a real-feeling way that's really hard but generally sounds less flat than garageband presets.

yes

This'll probably be the breakout piece on it all.

I am going out right now to buy blank micro-cassettes to release new album on.

This was my rig when I was 12:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/169305913_89ad027265.jpg

I guess I'm a nerd because I always thought cassette computer things were so tremendously exciting.

is there a good place to get cheap cassettes either online or in los angeles? we just got a second car that has a cassette player and i'd like to stock up on some good old school shit.

1. Thrift stores
2. Garage/yard sales
3. eBay lot auctions (I got rid of most of mine years ago by selling them in parcels of 100)

that's what i was thinking...i went to amoeba and i'm kinda surprised at how expensive some of the cassettes they're selling are. $4-$6 bucks in a lot of cases.

you really only need one case per cassette

D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DAD JOKE!

You'd be surprised at what people are dumping off at thrifts and yard sales. 50 cents for a cassette of some old rap or pop or something. They don't sound too bad on mp3 if you have decent equipment, better than the vinyl sometimes. I wouldn't put it on a mixtape but just for listening around the house or blasting at a party or in the car they are fine.

"Yeah, cassettes are definitely the new vinyl these days."

cassette tapes are the new vinyl

good old thread from 2003...

:-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCQnSc0fO4

it actually does exist.

After all, Jahnle said, "Mp3s sound terrible anyways, so why not have something that sounds terrible that you can hold?"

Cassette tapes are back in the mix!

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-cassette-revival-20100801,0,714127.story

They still make cassettes?!?!

posting to ilx exclusively via cassette now fyi hsssssssss

http://www.hypnovision.com/images/cassette.gif

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1181

buildin' a spliff alllright

This must be the week for the newspapers to discover this trend. The Chicago Tribune had a very similar piece the other day.

in regards to cassettes being the new vinyl, I thought the whole "vinyl craze" was due to many people preferring the sonic quality of vinyl to compact disc. But the cassette craze is more a length thing? Is there a sonic element? I always hated tapes not just for the getting clogged in the spools, but the fact that everyone of mine got 'dropout effect' after I played them enough.

I have a truckload of cassettes from the 90s but I've done replaced em all.

he's great in Rosemary's Baby!!

i used to be so obsessed w/ my tape player when i was young, i still kindof am, i tried making a frippertonics machine out of two cassette players once. .it only kinda worked

thanks again everyone

Old news

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/05/05/1241289170487.html?page=fullpage

i've been getting a lot of OOP hip-hop stuff on cassette recently. A lot of CDs that go for $80 are like $10 for an unopened cassette copy that sounds better than a 192kbps rip

http://noise-arch.net/

A collection of underground cassette releases.

80s - early 90s

Very cool to be able to listen to all of them in their entirety.

This is awesome

Anyone who checks it out, post your favorites if you can.

This is awesome

just curious, in what way is this more awesome than, say, bandcamp?

I couldn't tell you, I'm just glad I can listen.
this is awesome like Ubu web is awesome, I guess.

Digging the hell out of F/i "The circle is the square" right now.

Listening to that now

You're right, pretty great! Especially starting at the 8 minute mark for me.

oh my god I have wanted to hear those F/i cassettes for like 25 years!

I've really liked most of the rock or pop stuff I've heard so far here.

Guess it wasn't a hit!

Does anyone have any suggestions of where I might find a cassette storage case? Thrift shops don't seem to carry cassettes anymore - or even accept them for donation - and I haven't had a ton of luck looking around eBay (which I don't really use). Just trying to think if I'm missing something obvious.

I used to have about 10 big Case Logic cases, and they all vanished over the years...

My ebay search, for cassette storage cases, turned up everything I could think of that would fit the bill, including case logic cases. I guess it would depend on how many cassettes you were looking to store

Related searches for cassette storage cases : battle ball radio shack david lee roth cassette cassette cases audio cassette storage cases

Pre-CD days I actually used to use cassettes to DJ wedding receptions; they didn't bounce/skip like turntables/LPs. (Plus I could tape stuff from friends.) I still have a bunch of well-beaten cassette suitcases filled with tapes in my garage.

A friend of mine sent a link to a recent article on the persistence of cassettes in prison. Every few years (going back at least a decade, maybe more) someone does an article on this. I wonder how many years will pass while journalists get an easy pitch every, say, three years. Like in 2046 will SFJ have an article on the subject. Anyway:

http://www.fortressaudio.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=17

your mom was extremely persistent in prison. i wrote an article about it here:

goatse.info

sorry, wrong url. www.goatse.info

It's an old joke, Katherine. Anyway, I searched ILM and it seems to be an overlooked aspect of cassettes, though I might have missed something.

No you're right, it's a totally novel topic. Thanks Francine.

I'm going to make 10 copies of a mixtape I put on Soundcloud last year - have bought clean new tapes and covers and I need advice on recording

I could find a 2nd hand cassette deck, connect it to my stereo's tape out or my external sound card, and then make 10 separate recordings (not too much of a hassle) - but what cassette deck should I use? I seem to recall that a tape plays back best on the same deck used to record it - are some decks more 'neutral' than others?

I realize the sound quality won't be stellar either way, but I want to do this as well as I can

PS I bought the clean tapes via https://tapeline.info/v2/ which seems like a really cool shop, and if I release a proper album at some point I might use their duplication service

graphic designer Art Chantry on FB:

"back in the 1980's, there was a HUGE cassette tape underground that emerged. entire careers of superstar acts started in that scene, but the bulk was produced by DIY weirdoes with no money trying to get attention.
the result was some of the most amazing and bizarre and downright brilliant packaging design I've ever encountered. basically a cassette tape is small (tiny) and crummy - cheap! that's the point of it. how do you make it interesting?
up steps geeks and oddballs and weirdoes with their amazing imagination and a lot of time on their hands. at The Rocket we saw all sorts of amazing items get delivered. this can is a fine example what I'm talking about...
one favorite that arrived at The Rocket was a weird sort of starburst package made out of pieces of 2x4 nailed together in a modernist random pattern. there was one that wedged and not nailed. if you managed to wiggle it out, it revealed a cassette tape perfected entombed inside for your listening pleasure.
another was a blob of that spraycan insulation goop that continues to expand until it hardens. it was painted dayglo pink. it was on top of a green cloth box-shaped pouch. it looked like an ice cream cone (the tape was in the pouch).
but my all time favorite was a shaped box of chicken wire with dirt inside about an inch deep. growing in that dirt was a fresh crop of beautiful green grass a couple of inches tall (the roots held the dirt in place).
at one end was a little tombstone with name, title and band info - and also a little miniature shovel. the idea was you had to literally disinter (dig up) the cassette to play it. back from the grave!
brilliant stuff with no budget. that's always been where it's at."

otm

that's great, a cut well above the most extreme CD packaging I've seen (e.g. Spiritualized's blister packs, Spectrum's oil pouch)