Tabs Out

Cassauna Days Re Revisited
2.6.14 by Mike Haley

Since sorta falling asleep in 2011 after a year of heavy production, Important Records is waking up their cassette imprint Cassauna. Cassauna issued fourteen tapes from the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Greg Davis, Maurizio Bianchi, and Richard Lainhart’s Buchla 200e System recordings “Lux” (pictured below), to name a few, packaged in letterpressed and silk screened packaging. The relaunch brings two new release, two releases on deck, a Cassauna-centic episode of Imporant’s podcast, plus a Cassauna Bandcamp for the digital natives.

The new releases are by Randy Gibson & Zachary James Watkins with future cassettes coming from Claudio Rochetti + Pietro Riparbelli and Sarah Davachi. Here’s some info about the two new dudes direct from the Important horses mouth:

sauna15: RANDY GIBSON – THE FIRST PILLAR APPEARING IN SUPERNOVA
“The two sides of The First Pillar Appearing in Supernova could be considered as opposing explorations of the simplest section of my ongoing work, Apparitions Of The Four Pillars. When approached by Cassauna to make this cassette, I knew I wanted to use the mechanism of the cassette to create the work. As with my previous work for cassette, Analog Apparitions on The Tapeworm, the sound of the cassette is integral. Cassettes of individual vocal drones were recorded onto a Marantz PMD222. Using the volume and speed capabilities of the Marantz, I worked with a single line at a time to create a dense harmonic world from a simple intervallic source.”

sauna16: ZACHARY JAMES WATKINS – MOVEABLE
“Movable is scored for pianoforte in a unique just intonation/equal temperament hybrid tuning and employs a new mechanical extension we like to call the Piano Monster built by NYC artist Ranjit Bhatnagar that uses 16 voltage controlled motors with attached objects that resonate piano strings.”

 

 

 

The cassettes will set ya back ten bucks a pop and can be ordered by clicking the artist names above. I’m not seeing them on Bandcamp just yet, but most of the back catalog is up now. You can listen to episode six, an hour-long show focusing on Cassauna’s past, present, and future, on Soundcloud or below.

This Tape Is Rotten
2.6.14 by Mike Haley

Mr. Greg Gorlen, who runs the San Francisco based Turmeric Magnitudes imprint and shares his thoughts on cassette tapes over at his Demagnetization blog, has released a dizzying amount of material on cassette tape under multiple monikers. Someone will have to Snopes this for me, but Vibrating Garbage, Black Thread, Spitting Falcons, Dark Spring, Mannequin Assembly Co., Birds You Once Knew, Wires & Relays, Crosshatch Tape, and Greg Garbage are some, but not all, of the names in his noise-alias stable. Let me just punch the numbers into a calculator real quick to figure out exactly how many solo releases he has out… Okay, a shitload. It’s a shitload. But today’s release from Double G, “Rotten Tape”, is the first under his actual name.

“Rotten Tape” is a C20 of sloshing tape loops made from some of his previously released work as Vibrating Garbage and Crosshatch Tape, and source material for a collaboration with TVE. Fleshy, sluggish patterns of sound that squirm and drip, sometimes cruising into each other. Keeping with Turmeric Magnitude aesthetics the cover is a black & white closeup texture and the shell sticker is simple black text. It’s available to stream or buy for $5 from the TM Bandcamp. If you aren’t familiar with Turmeric Magnitudes deep catalog, do some digging around while you are there. It will be worth your time.

Greg Gorlen will be hitting the road come March playing a live version of this material across the United States of America. Follow him on Twitter to keep up to date on that shit.