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Anthony Janas’ Funny & Pretty Modular Musings
2.11.14 by Mike Haley

Everyone’s been talking about how chill the current Pope is. I think  mainly because the bar has been set so fucking low that if the dude doesn’t drive around, bumping into homosexuals in his bullet proof car, then people are like “Oh, wow! This one is super progressive, right guys?”. If you ask me, and I know you didn’t, but if you did I would say to forget about Vatican City and look about 7,000 miles west to Chicago, IL for the real deal. There you will find Catholic Tapes, a much doper place to offer your faith up. Brett Nauke has been running the label for about seven years now, baking up some heavy duty jams for the world. Things have been quiet lately, but today the white smoke billowed out of CT HQ signaling that new releases were now available.

One of those releases is an insanely delicious six-track cassette from Chicago-based sound artist Anthony Janas. The tape, titled “Funny & Pretty” is just over a half hour of carbonated modular synth structures mingling with clouds of atmospheric and quirky realness. Far from noodling, Janas navigates his way through some Mort Garson inspired space-pop arrangements that are sweetly thought out and executed. Catholic Tapes lays out that Janas busts “An extremely refreshing and new take on modular synthesis and electronic composition for 2014. One of the most exciting people in Chicago’s vast electronic scene and truly unlike anyone else in the game” and that ain’t just a bowl of hyperbole. You can figure that out by streaming the tape below.

When you are done, head over the Catholic Tapes shoppe and BUY THIS sucker before the well runs dry. A new 7″ from Brett Naucke is also available.

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.

Check Out Junior Pande’s Red Tape
2.5.14 by Mike Haley

The Red Tape is Junior Pande’s fourth cassette on Spring Break Tape in as many years. Junior Pande is the project of Justin Peroff, who Wikipedia says is best known as the drummer for the Toronto based indie rock collective Broken Social Scene, but I never actually heard that band, and I have heard Junior Pande, so this is what I know him best for. Don’t worry, I’ll update the Wiki article later. {{Citation needed}}

The Red tape is 20 minutes of beat & sample based music dabbling in experimental hip hop and footwork with moments of serene chillness. Each tape is packaged in a cardboard Ocard with original, unique photographs attached to each side and includes a zine with some of Peroff’s photography work. It’s limited to 50 copies and can be gripped up through Spring Break’s Bandcamp (linked in the player below).

New Lighten Up Sounds Batch Spans Format/Space/Time
2.4.14 by Mike Haley

You know what I like? I like it when something awesome happens. For example when pizza is hot, or the following day when the pizza is cold. Pizza is good hot or cold is what I’m getting at. But awesomeness doesn’t stop at pizza temperature. I also enjoy when a cassette label releases a tight batch. Something that sounds awesome, but doesn’t stop there. They go a little bit extra and make you do a quadruple take. Lighten Up Sounds, a label that i *think* is from Minnesota but I could be wrong so what’s the point of even mentioning that (??), did just that.

LUS dropped seven new ones into the world and they all caught my eyes and ears (two of each). Let’s dig in.

LUS#072: German Army “T’rung” C40
I think the first thing I heard from these dudes was a tape called Holland Village on Dub Ditch Picnic and it killed. They have a new LP out on A Giant Fern and a slew of other vinyl/cassette releases that you should be snagging up right now. This is a very yellow pro-dubbed tape, an edition of 100 copies.

LUS#073: Tirehouse Tapes “Vol.2″ C48
This is a duo (Dain Daller and Amanda Speer) from New Mexico that I have not heard of before, but the sound sample is quite dope. It’s a home dubbed edition of 50 copies and LUS says it “wonks steady”. Thus far I agree with their claim of steady wonkiness.

LUS#074: Burial Ground “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things” 8 track
Here is one of the two 8 track releases from the batch and it’s a crumbly mess from Burial Ground. It’s a “real time duplicated” 8 track, which I assume is the only way you could dub them, right? I mean, no one is pro dubbing these and 8 track decks don’t have high speed options. Right? I don’t know. Comes with a sticker if you like sticky things.

LUS#075: Clear Fluids “After Dark” VHS/C28/7″ lathe
The next guy is a C28 that comes with a musical video’d VHS, like the MTV used to do, from Clear Fluids. There are 23 “standard copies” (kush green VHS (NTSC) with mauve & white spine and face labels and retro melt warning, packaged in large black clamshell with full color cardstock insert. Each copy includes an extended cassette version of the album, translucent green shell c28 with mauve & white labels and full color cardstock J-cards) and 10 DIE HARD editions (different artwork in lime green clamshells with black VHS stock (except for ONE lime green tape mixed in at random!) All ten “Deluxe” packages include a clear shell c28 cassette, as well as a beautiful limited edition lathe-cut flexi square 7″ record, featuring an exclusive Clear Fluids track entitled “La Femme de Chambre”, otherwise unavailable. Completely clear one sided polycarbonate 33rpm records cut by 2208, screen printed on the B sides by M.H.). The Die Hard editions do not include the film of the same name, but they do include a condom.

LUS#076: Men Of Science “Antiseptic” C44
A collaboration between Andreas Brandal and Matthew Himes. Home dubbed tape wrapped in sterile gauze. It’s sterile, so DEFINITELY use it on any open wounds you get. I’m sure that will be fine.

LUS#077: Rattlesnake Eggs s/t 8 track
And here’s the second 8 track in the batch. An edition of 10 copies of dark basement vibes. Rattlesnake Eggs gets my vote for best current project name.

LUS#078: The Howling Head “Wrong Way” C10
The batch is rounded up by a lil’ C10 from The Howling Head. A harsh jammer that is entirely made of field recordings of public transit and outboard marine motors. You can really hear the Coleman® Four-Stroke 5HP on this one. Needs some oiling though.

And there she is. You can read/see more over at Lighten Up Sounds. Everything is nicely priced so order away!

Making Art With Keith Rankin
2.3.14 by Mike Haley

If you listen to the podcast at all then you know we all swoon over Keith Rankin from Orange Milk Records artwork. His sci-fi futuristic scenes of floating orbs, gradient soaked grids, and mind-juicing, hallucinatory landscapes really scratch that itch on my brain. Often difficult to tell apart from cartridges of Atari games or covers of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Keith has created artwork for dozens of Jcards. Now, like a modern day Bob Ross, he’s showing off the goods in a project called Making Art With Keith Rankin. Episode 1, of what I assume will be a series of YouTube videos, is a layer-by-layer demonstration for the creation of the EQ Why “Chitokyo Miktape” Jcard.

For some reason there is no rambling commentary, poor editing choices, or Red Hot Chili Peppers music over top the video, making this unlike any other YouTube tutorial I have ever seen before. I assume Keith will remedy all of that in Episode 2. There’s also no comments (yet) calling anyone Hitler or saying “THIS VIDEO SUCKS!!! FAIL!!!”. So confusing.

Watch the video below and buy the EQ Why cassette here.

Laser Focus #4: Tiger Hatchery
2.3.14 by Tabs Out

“Calling Tiger Hatchery a free jazz band would be as silly as asking any of the three members to wear the tennis outfit from a Ken doll. Try shoehorning the sex danger saxophone of primordial rock and roll into such a puny category. Simultaneously fold in the entire time line, stretching a hundred years in to the future, of avant earthquake bass technique. All while trying in vain to squeeze in an A1 spasmodic mallet swinging monkey man. Getting the picture yet kiddo?” – Mister Matthews

1.28.14: Cruel Nature

CN016: Pentadrvg / Abstinentiadivinorum / Ritvaladdikt / Persistence In Mourning “Alice” C90

Tape Of The Month: January 2014
1.27.14 by Mike Haley

Artist: ((Husband Material))
Title: Go Ahead And Start The Family Without Me
Length: C34
Label: Patient Sounds
Edition: 100
Dubbed: Home

You guys, it’s 2014! We did it, you guys. It’s a fresh start. A clean slate. Together we will quit smoking, get that Red Hot Chili Peppers tattoo we keep going on about, and finally learn the difference between a Vulcan and a Romulan. This is OUR year! Okay, we probably wont get around to any of that, but a new year does mean that the smoke of year-end lists, and the accompanying bellyaching about those lists, has cleared. The Buzzfeedian dystopia put to rest for the next, what, ten months or so? Now is the time for baby steps towards the next inescapable round of the Best Of Wars, our first shot fired being the January Tape of the Month by ((Husband Material)).

I know absolutely zero about ((Husband Material)) and what previous output may or may not exist. All I have to go on is an amusing Twitter account and this 34 minute cassette released late this month by Patient Sounds. From what I gather there seems to be a schtick going on that is family-man themed.

Sort of a King Of The Hill, straight shootin’, “just give me a steak, nothing on it, nothing on the side” kind of scenario. An age where every fella worked a shitty 9-5 with a foreman breathing down their neck, dressed like Billy Joel from the cover of Glass Houses for special occasions, and like the guys on the inside of this Jcard for family vacations to the Grand Canyon.

The motif starts with the ((HM)) name and continues on into track titles like “Financially Stable (A Career-Oriented Gentleman)”, “The Size of the Rock That She Deserves”, and “A Job That Pays”. It doesn’t bleed into the sounds created whatsoever. The opener, “Financially Stable” busts in with some muddy vibrations, like a layer from an alternate take of the Doctor Who theme song, transferred off of poorly stored 1/4″ tape that’s been sitting in a church basement for the past 50-some years. The swampy sci-fi vibe eventually mingles with murky bedroom hip hop beats, the two walking along, hand in clammy hand, while distortion slowly creeps in and takes over the party. That’s followed up by a three minute and 7 second glistening cycle of catchy-meets-weird beats, like a quick dose of Flying Lotus, titled “My Bloody Laventine”, and a minute and a half high-pitched drone rasp called “Honeymoon Blues”. Those juxtapositions are the basic raw deal with “Go Ahead And Start The Family Without Me”. A dim effervescence cold chillin’ in a cloud of experimentation, sampling, and occasionally resampling on other tracks. Basically ((Husband Material)) is like DJ Screw, but with drank made up of unfiltered Soda Stream water and children’s cough medicine. Maybe some Smarties ground up in the mix. The percentage of sounds created – sounds gripped from the universe is unknown to me. For example, the liner notes make mentions like “Demons did synth work on song 9”. Does that mean released work by the Nate Young / Steve Kenney duo was snagged off of Napster and thrown through the Chopped & Screwed-O-Matic? Does someone else go by that moniker and produced original synth work for song 9? That is between ((Husband Material)) and its God. I’m not too worried about it right now.

I already touched on the inside image of uncle Bert and Frank in their summer gear, so let’s move on to the outside shot. A photo of the girls graduating, and good for them. We didn’t think they would make it through four years of high school, especially Crystal after the frog incident last year, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t do it. Ray-Anne and Margo plan on going to nursing school. Crystal says she going to live in the basement for one more year and then move out west, but who’s holding their breath on that one, right? The pink shell of the cassette has labels affixed to both sides of the palm trees from the other two pictures cropped off on the sides of the cover.

All in all ((Husband Material)) brings a weird one that knows it’s weird, but doesn’t rely on the weirdness to hold the jams up. It’s part of Patient Sounds’ January Bundle, oddly enough released in the month of January. You can snag a copy for $6, or if you’re smart shopper, as part of a excellent bundle deal along with cassettes by Angelo Harmsworth, Dura, Derek Rogers, Former Selves, and label operator M.Sage for 23 bones. Click here to do either one.

Soundholes Live Through This
1.17.14 by Mike Haley

If you made it past that awful pun of a headline then you deserve to know about the sub-label that Soundholes started called Soundholes Live Editions. As you may have gathered from it’s name, Soundholes Live Editions is an imprint for (wait for it) live recordings. It was started back in May of last year, fucking EONS ago in the cassette universe, but I’m just hearing about it now so here we go. The first two releases, by A Snake In The Garden and BBBlood, came out in minuscule editions of 20 copies each. They’re simply named for the places where the sets took place, “Live At The Marilyn Mansion” (great name for a venue) and “Live At Crater Lake” respectively, with black and white artwork.  Both are still available.

They also come on CDr, in larger editions than the cassette versions actually, but let’s not talk about that. Ya’ start mentioning CDrs, then you’re talking about MP3s, and who knows what’s next. It’s a slippery slope, my friends. Let’s focus on the cassettes! 13:12 of audio from A Snake In The Garden, 18:43 from BBBlood. material repeats on the B side for both of these guys. Check em out.