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Years Of In-Store Kmart Cassettes Archived For Some Reason
10.10.15 by Mike Haley

In the 80’s and 90’s the in-store music and commercials pumped through the speakers at Kmart, under the name Kmart Radio (KMRT), were actually cassette tapes played on repeat. New cassettes were shipped to stores every month (eventually weekly) and, like all the other garbage at Kmart, were supposed to be tossed in the trash. For whatever reason, ex-Kmart employee Mark Davis saved 50-some of those cassettes. Mark goes into detail about them in this pretty awesome YouTube Video:

He describes it as a “strange collection”, which is pretty damn accurate. Now, 20 years later, he’s uploaded that strange collection to Archive.org. If you wanna jam some muzak, pharmacy commercials from 1989, or maybe you are simply a fucking weirdo, you can check out all the recordings here.

No Rent Noise Hotline
10.5.15 by Mike Haley

Any schmuck with a decent Wifi signal can set up a Bandcamp or Soundcloud page for their label. But it takes a special kind of schmuck, one with gumption, to set up a hotline that can be called to stream upcoming releases. Introducing the No Rent Noise Hotline. What is the No Rent Noise Hotline you ask? It’s a toll-free number where one can check out mega lo-fi samples of upcoming NOISE from Jason Crumer’s resurrected No Rent imprint. Much like the They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song hotline or the DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince rap hotline of years past, you only need to dial the number, followed by the extension, and BAM. You’re streaming the way our ancestors used to do it, before HTML was discovered.

The number?

(641) 715-3900, extension 590622#

Currently on the hotline is side A of an upcoming Shredded Nerve cassette. What’s next? Who knows. No Rent has tapes by Damion Romero, Dromez, Sapphogeist, Reverse Baptism, and others on deck, so maybe one of those. Check out the Now Playing page and call, call, CALL!

No Rent discogaphy

New Batch – Eiderdown
9.22.15 by Mike Haley

When Eiderdown talks, you listen. Ya got it, kid? And not just because I’m telling you to. Because you almost HAVE to. First off, it’s damn near impossible to miss their eye-zesting artwork (done proper by Max Clotfelter) silk screened on the Jcards. If you’re a dumbbell so far ahead of your time that the screaming illustrations don’t knock you on your fanny, then just open your ears!! Open em wiiiiiiide. The zones go all the way to the bone. The latest duo of gems from the Seattle operation are from Zeta One and Woven Skull.

On “DreamSnake II” Zeta One performs a mystical sweep, like a UFO scanning an occult ceremony from just above the tree line. A glowing aura inflates from Dawn Aquarius’ magnetic voice, guitar, and synth. Echoed chants spiral in a conjuring manner through smoke and fog, making her sounds alluring and patient. Think Woodsist style fire circle with a little bit of dark magic sprinkled in. Haunting, memorable vibes.

On their “Emissions From Sun Bleached Brains” C30, Woven Skull goes on a scenic trip through hills of folky freakness and valleys of mic’d room psych sessions. The trio play off of each other, but don’t shy away from tangents, during some lengthy, airy tribal rhythms and occasional clamor. For the most part “Emissions” is mega chill. And if getting mega chill with Woven Skull isn’t enough for your picky sensibilities, there is a song called Stoned, Teenage, Listening to Tangerine Dream (part 2). If that doesn’t do it for ya, then I can’t help you. Nobody can help you.

If you get down with witchcraft, weed, (boxed) wine, and wisdom, then grip up these tapes from Eiderdown now. Both are editions of 100.

Shedding – Plod & Play Vol.1
9.21.15 by Mike Haley

“Plod & Play Vol.1” is one of those recordings that doesn’t need to do a lot to do a lot. Does that make sense? I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Shedding, real name Mr. Connor Bell from Louisville, KY,  takes an extremely gentle approach to tinkering, with a process that seems to blend conscious efforts with happy accidents. He goes minimal, but never meanders. He has fun.

There’s an excellent use of sparseness, weirdness, and beauty over the course of these dozen tracks. Shedding often sends the listener down an ooey-gooey slip-n-slide of squishes and gurgling tones, like on the second track, Lhaze Too. Here, seemingly random synth gulps rattle into each other like introverts navigating Walmart on a Black Friday. The nervous dance can be concerning, but it’s fun to watch. And in the end they all make it to the check out line alive. On the last track of side A, Kiss (one of the longer cuts at just four minutes), Bell offers up one of his condensed dream sequences. Unlike the more fidgety moments on the tape, Kiss focuses more on thick foggy floor sounds and the allure of vivid blinking.

The B side of “Plod” (this was all recorded between 2002-2005 & 2011) is a bit more focused. Patterns begin to emerge, oscillators still croak and jitter, but with more of a purpose. Maybe more direction? The track Abend is a pretty sweet example of that. Melodies fade from wet to dry, rich vapors sweep in the background. A nice warm hug from tonality and randomness. Even with that focus, you’ll still get the feeling that everything is stream-of-thought. And I like that. Connor Bell had some excellent thoughts to share.

The artwork for this, and the other releases from City State Tapes, is pretty damn superb. You can pick up “Plod & Play Vol.1”, made in an edition of 50 copies, now. Please do so.

2015 Goldrush Companion Cassette
9.17.15 by Mike Haley

The 5th consecutive Goldrush Music Festival will take place this weekend, September 18th and 19th, in Denver, CO with a cast of outsider artisans including Yoni Wolf, Lawrence English, Tara Jane O’Neil, Guardian Alien, and Pictureplane. For the 4th year a cassette compilation has been put together to guide ya through the roster’s diverse array of genres and talent.

This year’s comp is a 22-track, 80-minute marathon kicked off with some calm, reflective experimentation by Brooklyn’s Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk. The material then sways through a catalog of moods, from the shoegazey chillness of Landing to heady guitar drone from AMULETS, before Tara Jane O’Neil wraps up side A with a gorgeously gushing unreleased cut.

Side B is equally stacked. Denver locals Bang Play blitz a standout track of crazy free jazz early on that leads into a grip of lo-fi, stoked-on-Elliott-Smith pop from Austin, TX artist More Eaze. The comp (well, I guess the fest itself) is full of that sort of heavy juxtaposition. Why?’s Yoni Wolf right before a dream pop take on Lucinda Williams’s “Passionate Kisses” performed by Lisa Prank (brilliant moniker btw). Straight up rock giving way to randomly dispensed oscillations. It’s a smooth taste test and a killer attack on stagnation.

Eye candy for the 2015 Goldrush Companion Cassette was executed by the always great Tiny Little Hammers. You can pick up one of the 300 copies a few ways: Free with 2-day passes to the fest, for $5 at the fest, or for $7 through Planted Tapes if you can’t make it out to Denver.

Side A
1. Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk – Little Village [0:00]
2. Bollywood Life – White Wall [5:39]
3. Landing – Glow [9:40]
4. Guardian Alien – female masturbation music [13:41]
5. American Culture – My Teeth are Sharp [18:03]
6. AMULETS – NIHILISM ON 1-10 [19:36]
7. Benoît Pioulard – Needless to Say [27:40]
8. Crown Larks – Pt. 4: Satrap [30:38]
9. déCollage – Friendlings [35:33]
10. Tara Jane O’Neil – Kelly [39:16]

Side B
1. Lawrence English – Coda for a Fading Tide [0:00] 2. Bang Play – Push it Slow [2:53] 3. More Eaze – Amicable Detentes [4:41] 4. braeyden jae – A Joy of Hell [7:10] 5. dugout canoe – (‘-‘) [11:39] 6. Yoni Wolf – Rifle Eyes [23:35] 7. Lisa Prank – Passionate Kisses [25:44] 8. Make-Overs – Post Show Hissy Fit [27:49] 9. John Chantler – A New Power [31:04] 10. Nevada Greene – A Love of Irrelevant Mind [35:20] 11. The Space Lady – Who We Are is a Key [38:18]