The Anti-Cassettes of Auris Apothecary
2.1.18 by Mike Haley

Generally speaking a desired feature with cassette tapes is that they are easily playable. A dowsing of variants exist, but ideally someone producing a cassette would use high grade magnetic tape, employ real-time or professional duplication, and pack that sucker in a fresh Norelco case. Nowhere during that process would rotten meat or sand make an appearance. Those materials are far from industry standards (I checked). The cassette industry newsletter must have went straight to Auris Apothecary‘s spam folder. Ooops! The Indiana-based label has a long and strong catalog traversing the freeway of possible formats: vinyl, CDr, runs of NES OST tapes, floppy discs, reel-to-reels, etc… They also have a reputation of taking the exit ramp and voyaging the roads far less traveled. The ones paved with rotten meat and sand. I’m talking about anti-cassettes.

Traditionally, anti-cassettes are tapes designed to be impossible to play, or at the very least, a major fucking chore. Auris Apothecary did not invent the format, but have most definitely matured it into a thoughtful art/mind/music experimentation. “Anti-cassettes to us represent a way to implement tangible manifestations of abstract concepts.” said label guru Dante Augustus Scarlatti. “Multiple layers of ideas are embedded into every facet of them, from the audio content and the title, to the artwork and the alteration. Almost every piece of anti-releases are cohesively created and directly tied into one another, rather than simply being a collection of new songs or a random musical object that’s been senselessly destroyed.”

Luckily their plans to use spoiled meat as packaging got canned, along with other bonker blueprints like an ant farm anti-cassette. Sand got the green light in 2010 with AA’s inaugural anti-cassettes Unholy Triforce’s ‎”Sandin’ Yr Vagina.” The plugged-up tapes were filled to the brim with sand, labeled with a vintage label maker, and packaged in an emery clothe (basically sand paper) Ocard. “To this day it’s our most destructive release, musically and conceptually, as it can destroy the machine it’s played in and makes a mess wherever it goes.” If you ask me, anyone attempting to play a tape full of sand deserves to have their deck gnarled up. Dante Augustus Scarlatti has a rosier view. “We very much want people to figure out a way to play back the music contained on our anti-releases. We meticulously test for and can guarantee the salvageability of the audio content for every copy, despite how they may appear.”

Standards are just shy of using a cleanroom and wearing one of those full-body suits (booties to hood style) for their anti-cassette process. While working on “Siberiliszt Inferno” by Unholy Triforce in 2015, a cassette that was literally melted – Melted! – caution was taken not to touch the tape reels. Imagine getting a molten ball of tape and thinking “Let me make sure no one touched the reels!” Up to 71 people may have done that.

Prototypes for the “Baptism” anti-cassette C30 by Rob Funkhouser ran into a unique snag when the water that the tapes were submerged in became cloudy from rust. “We removed the metal and felt pieces” Dante said of the solution, noting an attempt to avoid “compromising the magnetic materials.” That helicopter parenting is what sections off Auris Apothecary’s anti-cassettes from something like “Wind Licked Dirt” by The Haters, an anti-cassette released by Hanson that is played by rubbing it in dirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

“Some are harder than others to play back, but none of them are impossible, and they all contain unique music written for the release. Viewing them as “art objects” and never listening is like owning a book for the cover art but never reading it.” The level of difficulty ranges from beginner to expert. If you only feel comfortable toweling off hot sauce and unfurling 50 square feet of aluminum foil, you’re in luck. Maybe you want to tackle a sonic-welded (no screws) tape with toothless spools. Go for it! Or just put the entire damn thing together yourself.

A full archive of Auris Apothecary’s anti-cassettes can be accessed through this anti-link: L#-_I}}][}{\N.k

First Terrace Records releases the multifaceted stunner “Compilation 2”
1.26.18 by Mike Haley

Let’s say a friend is telling you a story about, I don’t know, going to Whole Foods for avocado water or whatever. If during that story they offhandedly mention that Huey Lewis was there shopping for chestnut kefir spread I would call them out for burying the lede. The avocado water story, no matter how interesting, becomes meaningless when The News (lol) is now 100% Huey.

First Terrace Records buried the lede with “Compilation 2.” And boy did they pile the dirt on.

The image above shows off the compilation’s exceptional packaging and contents. The gold embossed box with prints and a zine looks like something you would see attached to the article “Woman discovers original Basquiat journal in cigar box.” The curation is flawless. You can stream all thirteen tracks if you don’t trust me for some reason. Even if you do trust me, listen to them anyway for a frothy lathering of damaged energy and a hard-won out of body bubble bath.

BUT the real story here: The runtime of “Compilation 2” is 68 minutes long. Just one minute shy of a very VERY funny number of minutes. Start off with that, then get into how fucking amazing this thing is. That tip is free for First Terrace. The tape will cost you, but it’s worth it.

Cinchel – A Sad Study in Temporal Dissonance
1.23.18 by Mike Haley

I’m onto you Cinchel. *cracks knuckles*
I’ve figured out your little game. *cracks neck*
I see what you’re trying to do. *cracks all seven Chakras*

“A Sad Study in Temporal Dissonance,” Cinchel’s latest for the Patient Sounds label, is a trap. A sunken trench covered in fall leaves, misleading young lovers, hikers, and cassette reviewers to early termination with the assurance of radiant golds and magentas. The nine track subterfuge (which clocks in at a hour btw) starts off with bells. BELLS! It seems obvious now, gazing up to the light from the bottom of a deep ditch Cinchel has dug, that the bells were pure enticement. Why would the sound of ceremonious bells even be wafting about like an unignorable aroma anyways? But, you know what they say – hindsight is 4/20. Now I’m trapped in a pit.

Every song on “A Sad Study” doesn’t begin sugary sweet only to dilate into a ravine of darkness, but it would be good form to assume that the next gum up of good times is always on it’s way. The smooth sailing guitar, electronics, and BELLS! It all crumbles with time. I guess that’s just life though; A sequence of attempting not to fall in ditches mixed with falling in ditches.

I managed to get a message out to Cinchel asking him to explain his intentions with this devious shit, and to please send supplies. His response:

“The tape is meant to mimic the arc of life: birth to death. Each song explores how events in a life are in a constant balance between happy/sad, optimism/pessimism.”

No supplies were included.

I applaud Cinchel for his work on this tape. The angelic avalanches and cruel certainty are like oil and water, end-to-end saturating the recording. Cinchel is one of the few “drone people” (if that means anything?) that refuses to bore and “A Sad Study in Temporal Dissonance” is an excellent sounding/looking tape. I just wish he would help me out of this hole… Maybe you’ll join me!?

Norelco Mori announces preorder for “Compilation 001”
1.19.18 by Mike Haley

Well, well, well. What in the hell do we have here? It looks like the Tabs Out archenemy, rival cassette podcast Norelco BORI, has done cooked themselves up a niiiiice looking cassette compilation for the new Norelco Mori Limited label. Wouldn’t it be a shame if something nasty were to happen to it? Something like, I don’t know, a REAL COOL cassette podcast pulling a huge prank and dubbing over all 100 copies with Donkey Lips sound clips just as Ted ButTler finished dubbing them in real time on chrome cassettes. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen, I’m just saying it COULD happen. Yeah, dub right over all 11 tracks from b.lind, øjeRum, Desroi, Grozny Penthouse, Head Dress, Lower Tar, Con Cetta, Tom Hall, Sleep Clinic, Grøn, and even this little ditty by Sequences.

That would be hilarious. And to be honest, people would probably like “Compilation 001″even more with a zany twist like that. And can we talk about the name?! “Compilation 001” is what you’re going with? That’s it? Here’s some low hanging fruit to bite into, Ted: “Compilation 069.” You taste those juices? That’s a name like that will drive these preorders through the friggin ROOF. So heads up, Head Dress. Get your act together.

Ｓｐｏｒｔ３０００- Ｃｌｅａｒａｎｃｅ Ｓａｌｅ
1.17.18 by Mike Haley

The Swiss financial services holding company Credit Suisse has predicted that upwards of 25% of US malls (roughly 275 shopping centers) will close in the next five years. That is on top of the landscape of skeletal boxes, or dead malls, currently rotting across the country. For every 100 Americans there are 2,353 square feet of shopping center space, which makes less and less sense in a reality where a person can grab bacon, lasers, and DJ equipment for their cat all from the comfort of a sad, but convenient couch.

I was talking with my dad not long ago and the conversation, of course, went to his youth. Nothing is more special to a boomer than a boomer’s coming of age… Beatles and shit. He’s going on about how there used to be stores around the neighborhood. “People could walk to all the local stores and get whatever they needed, but not anymore, they’re all gone.” Yeah, you did that. You replaced the local Main or Market or whatever the street was in that particular town with standardized zones of acquisition. Don’t get me wrong, malls were stone cold cool to hang out at as a kid, shiiiiii.  But that’s probably it for em, huh? In use for but a few decades, malls are now essentially time capsules. The cities remain dry and malls are downgraded to museums of spent neon and plastic trees from the worst era of plastic trees. Pretty cool, right? Perhaps one day they’ll become capitols for the various post-nuclear survivor factions who use expired Kohl’s Cash as currency. Here is an artist rendering of what that might look like:

Ｓｐｏｒｔ３０００, who does something silly with the font of course, is a person, or people, or line of code with a bad case of mall-brain. The blurry-eyed lounge drip of “Ｃｌｅａｒａｎｃｅ Ｓａｌｅ” goes thirteen tracks deep, setting out to narrate the life and death of a department store, and absolutely nailing that objective. The opener,３０，０００ Ｓｑｕａｒｅ Ｍｅｔｅｒｓ, is fresh and welcoming -The floors are buffed so well they look like you could ice skate on them. Piles of sweaters and husky boy slacks are displayed in precise piles like a Navy man folded them. Generally, the first half of the tape is extremely chill. The security cameras are still running, all the registers are working, etc…  Each track on the front end walks us through another department, Cosmetics & Beauty sounding particularly popping, even visiting a restaurant on the top floor. How fancy. With majorly impressive form, Ｓｐｏｒｔ３０００ vacuumed the DNA of a fictional high-end shopping mall and it’s decline. Speaking of the decline… By the time we reach the title track Ｃｌｅａｒａｎｃｅ Ｓａｌｅ there is a guy holding a huge arrow sign outside. “80% off!” “Final Day!” Not only does the malsoft vibe begin to languish into depression, buffering glitches and long moments of silence stick the the back end tracks. Carl the guard isn’t monitoring the security footage anymore. Hell, the cameras haven’t worked in months. Lollipops from Halloween promotions stick to every possible surface, including the mannequins, who can even feel the end coming. Everything must go!

Closed Forever.

Adhesive Sounds only made 25 copies of this tape! Hurry up and buy one from them or Burlington Coat Factory.

Hear the unreleased Narwhalz (of Sound) tape that’s been fermenting for a decade
1.15.18 by Mike Haley

Unclear if POM REDNECK SNOOPY:A side was in a mason jar, maturing like a fucked up Kombucha goblin or not. Maybe it was stashed at the last known Blockbuster behind a copy of Bee Movie, which was released in 2007 when “Pom Redneck Snoopy” was recorded. I don’t know why it never came out, or where it’s been for a decade, or how it was found. I don’t know how Tiger Woods was convinced to do the intro. I don’t know what the Tetris score was after Narwhalz surfed on that Gameboing something nasty. And I didn’t bother asking Brian Blomerth either. This is what we know from the Soundcloud summary:

A side of Unreleased Narwhalz (of Sound)Tape from 2007. Two gameboys straight to DAT in the Pom Hole, Richmond, VA.

Cover depicts my favorite memories from that era. Mainly getting thrown in the trash at the end of a set.

Also…I’m giving the Narwhalz name and gear (two gameboys) to any kid that wants to take up the mantle. They can be Narwhalz from now on. If you want your little sister to have a horrible time in her 20s. Tell her to be Narwhalz. All you have to do is send me a message but she’s gotta drink my favorite drink with me. (Listerine and Four Loko)

Damn. Listen to this shit before Soundcloud isn’t a thing anymore, then become Narwhalz! Damn.

Lee Noble shares the track “Sanyo Loop” from his forthcoming Japanese tour tape
1.14.18 by Mike Haley

The monumental amount of shitholeness going down right now makes it vital that the US dispatches its best and brightest throughout the world as goodwill ambassadors. Some trips need to get canned while the urgency of others have skyrocketed. On that note, Lee Noble will be embarking on a Japanese tour in late February. The boss of all things No Kings probably thought he was gonna be pouring over breathtaking sights, eating amazing food, and playing seven fun gigs. Nope! Never before has the dealing of waxy synths, tape loops, and flexible grips of guitar/vocal putty been so important to a nation’s face saving. Lee, I’m speaking directly to you here. Lee, this is a very serious mission. Don’t fuck it up. You’ll have a guitar, therefore the ability to BURST into Cat Scratch Fever at any moment. The next thing you know we’re all watching the “Lee Noble’s mens rights rant” video on Pitchfork. Sure, it would be nice to get some of that smokin’ Pfork coverage, but please!! Only do good while abroad. I know you’ll make us proud.

Muzan Editions will be releasing a tour cassette by Noble called “Ashenden.” Listen to a track from it called Sanyo Loop right here.

 

Tokyo Feb 17
Ochiai SOUP

Tokyo Feb 17
Bullet’s (midnight show)

Tokyo Feb 18
Uchi (house show)

Matsumoto Feb 20
Give Me Little More

Kyoto Feb 21
Urban Guild

Kobe Feb 23
Space Eauuu

Nara Feb 24
Sonihouse

ASPS – double cassette
1.12.18 by Mike Haley

What a cretin, this ASPS double cassette. The nerve of it, thinking it can plop down anywhere it pleases and unload it’s grease traps. I’m talking coffers of slushy, pit-stained patterns. And the smell! Awww, it’s so oddly tart. Since when does audio have a smell? The dog wont even eat this up, and that beast has eaten it’s own vomit, puked it up, then ate it’s own puke. But this ASPS double cassette? Half way through one of the four 10-12 minutes sides and all of a sudden this mutt thinks it’s Special Times Just Right.

Maybe the pooch has a point. This ASPS double cassette is gross. Not gross in the intentional way, like some bozo playing with himself through a chain of Danelectro® Burnt Toast™ distortion pedals (though there may be some of that in the artwork). This ASPS double cassette is gross because it isn’t self aware. It’s socially awkward, forever a boogie on the brink of breaching it’s nostril. While that may be a death sentence for a fourth grader, it works wonders for magnetic tape daubed by bubbly-skinned mutant music.

Okay, roll it back. I need to give this ASPS double cassette more credit than I am, because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that this ASPS double cassette is bad. It’s not! This ASPS double cassette is gross, sure, but it’s super alive with interesting rhythms and loops that sound like they are coming out of steam cleaners and Soda Streams. And steam cleaners clean things, so maybe it’s not gross? Damn, I am so confused, and I blame this ASPS double cassette (note to self: find out if ASPS is pronounced “Ass Piss”).

I’m doing it again, aren’t I? I’m talking about this ASPS double cassette in the same breath as asses and pisses. Well, I don’t know what to say! Maybe by the time you power through the 45 minutes of this ASPS double cassette you’ll have the same sort of film on your skin that I do. Maybe your dog (and mine is a rescue btw, yr welcome) will look at you differently. Maybe it will be because ASPS gazed into the noise-techno abyss and when the abyss gazed back, ASPS farted on it then sampled the fart on this ASPS double cassette in a very captivating way. Captivating, but still damp with all the charm of stranger’s basement. Which is gross. Ideas slosh into each other through the crowded halls of four side-long tracks with varying degrees of self control. Drones plot along like Velcro, damaged by jarring interruptions. I don’t know? Maybe you’ll dig this ASPS double cassette because you are weird.

Buy it from Nostorca then get back to me, ya filthy animal.

Sample Quiet Evenings and more from upcoming Adversary batch
1.12.18 by Mike Haley

For the last couple of years Adversary has been a low key clearing house for all things Rachel and Grant Evans, who previously ran the labels Hooker Vision and VAALD. Exclusively releasing their own music as Motion Sickness of Time Travel (Rachel), Grant Evans (uh, Grant), and Quiet Evenings (both of em), the label has put out about a dozen and a half cassettes and CDrs, including “Diaries & Documents,” a double tape collection of Motion Sickness tracks from 2006 – 2010.

They’ve announced an upcoming batch of three tapes that touch all bases – A thawing dose of desperation noise on “Ergot Dogs” by Grant Evans, all leaky with wind-hacked field recordings and unboxed gloom. The vibe is a single, dangling lightbulb swinging, rows of amber-stained mason jars that have seem some shit, and horsehair insulating the walls. “Love Sick” from Motion Sickness of Time Travels’ “The Circuit” C24 may as well be from another planet. Rachel Evans’ synthesizers are animated with Day-Glo. If you spun them they would turn into cotton candy. Through that is a slide show of vocals running on an old carousel projector that every so often malfunctions and grinds. Quiet Evenings locks things up. The 5 minutes from what will eventually b a C30 are like tone therapy.  “Espions” will be one of those absurd-through-headphones tapes I bet, where each note pierces you like a hot finishing nail surrounded by drone.

Each tape is “coming soon.” Take that as you will. Tune into Adversary on Tumblr and listen/purchase on Bandcamp. You know the deal.

Ren Schofield steps into Plastic Bags
1.10.18 by Mike Haley

I Just Live Here was a flagship label for a scene that I’m not sure had a name, but definitely raged a strong existence. They weren’t really bound by sound, because their sounds were usually in mid-transformation, morphing off into all kinds of crazy shapes and sizes. It was more like a forward-looking crew whose mind vibrations throbbed on the exact same frequency. As if stick and poke tattoos and background characters from Thunderdome forced themselves into reality then tried to blend in. Along with kinsfolk like Ekhein and Arbor, I Just Live Here went hard from about 2005 – 2010, fizzling out over the net few years. In that time they released close to 100 albums, mostly on cassette with on point silk screening. You knew a tape had an IJLH screen job when the ink coated the cover like cake frosting. A+

Occupants of that post-nihilist bouncy house of jammers included Work/Death, Copper Glove, Lazy Magnet, Leslie Keffer, Privy Seals, Unicorn Hard-On, and on and on and on into a swirling vortex of pizza and broken gear. Plus projects by or including Ren Schofield. Oh shit, I don’t think I even mentioned it yet – Ren Schofield is the hu-man that was calling the I Just Live Here shots. He also made sounds as God Willing and with the tape hacking trio Form A Log, who released “Air Circus” in 2009 as a C30 on the imprint.

In 2013 I Just Live Here went *poof* and naturally sublimated into a gas. ” I sort of just got discouraged by and disinterested in music for a while and didn’t care about having a label.” said Schofield. Focus was shifted to his Container project, which big-timed a run of LPs on Spectrum Spools, and life went on.

Fast forward to 2018. PLASTIC BAGS! Plastic Bags? Yes! Plastic Bags! Getting out of bed with a slightly different haircut, but basically the same complexion, I Just Live Here is up and about, but with the new name Plastic Bags. Maybe it’s a witness protection thing? “It probably barely will be [different from I Just Live Here] to be honest” Schofield described the old/new operation. “Except I’m planning on all the releases to be a lot less limited, because I like the idea of having a large back catalog of things that are in stock as opposed to getting rid of everything immediately, and I want to pay a lot more attention to the quality this time in terms of everything, music, design, production, etc.”

Wilted Woman, a project currently based out of Berlin by Lizzie Davis, has the first release on Plastic Bags with “Trapezoid Tappers” C52. “She’s super prolific with the project, has tons of releases out, all pretty different from each other, but still retaining a signature sound. Not afraid to try out totally new things or go into uncharted realms. A true ‘experimental’ artist I’d have to say. One of my favorite underground weirdo jammers of the last several years.”

Releases on the label will be infrequent, but “Trapezoid Tappers” is available now through the 2005 – 2010 method of straight Paypal with no website.

US: $10 – CAN/MEX: $15 – WORLD: $20 paypal to gentledefect@gmail.com