Last year I reviewed an excellent batch from Crash Symbols. 2019 brings another diverse set of tapes from the always eclectic label. This West Virginia-based tape label casts a wide net in the musical ocean, and as usual offers up artists and projects from all over the globe.
ML Wah and Herbcraft - No Slack cassette/download (https://crashsy…
Tag: cassette culture
Bad Cake Records – Four Slices of Today’s Special
Now well into its second year of existence, with nearly twenty tapes in its archives, Ruix returns to Bad Cake records. I was sent four of the most recent offerings and below will cover each. Tony Lien, aka Dere Moans, has carved a very rich and varied place in the experimental tape world. These albums are available both on cassette tape and as a d…
Arrowounds – The Red List On Tape
Arrowounds is the solo project of Texas artist Ryan Chamberlin. His new release, Book of Endangered Species, out now on Histamine Tapes, is quite the heavy statement. His previous work trades in post-rock/shoegaze territory, but this release veers toward ambient drone and field recordings. This is not just a reverb and echo laden headphone trip…
Dream of the ’90s – sewingneedle bring the noise (rock)
sewingneedle - User Error (Already Dead Tapes and Records)
By Jason Thompson
sewingneedle would be good on Chic-A-Go-Go, the local Chicago TV dance show for kids. If the likes of Bobby Conn are cemented in its hallowed historic on-air performances, and if dudes like Jandek can get spun on there with no irony for the locals to shake it to…
Circuitry of Ghosts – Installing the Relaxing Chips
Dakota Snaketail wears many artistic hats, including ambient musician, experimental filmmaker, artist, and writer. Based in Tyler, Texas, their musical output is spread across various projects, everything from the drones of The Flesh to harsh noise (Shadowpiercer) and lo-fi shoegaze (Where the Sea Meets Human Shadows) to his power electronics w…
A Menu of Delightful Sounds – Dere Moans’ Future Deli
Bad Cake Records is a tape label that appeared in early 2018 and boasts 10 releases so far. Run by Tony Lien, the Minnesota label fashions itself a “misfit, non-elitist cassette label with no set aesthetic.” The real link I hear between their releases is that each artist does their cooking in a home studio and keeps it on the raw lo-fi side…
CRASH SYMBOLS: Dancing To Their Own Beat
Started in 2010 and run by Dwight and Liz Pavlovic, Crash Symbols is a psychedelic tape label, though it branches out to include many other genres. They were kind enough to send me a batch of their 5 newest tapes and here they are in order of catalogue number.
Touched by an Angle Vol. 2
More than a compilation, this cassette is equal p…
MASSIMO MAGEE – STUDIES IN SOUND
Massimo Magee – Hunting Horn and Rotation Studies (Lurker Bias)
Massimo Magee has been making all sorts of visual and audio artworks for a while. In his latest listening project, Hunting Horn and Rotation Studies, Magee mines the minimalistic. The album is presented in five “studies,” each being a variation on a main theme of what appe…
NO LIMITS FOR ADDERALL CANYONLY
Adderall Canyonly - Limits of All Known Ice (Lighten Up Sounds)
I don’t know Adderall Canyonly personally but I’m well aware of his work via past tapes, and his excellent curation of the mind bending Field Hymns label. Yet, I’m trying to come in on this one as free of bias as possible (difficult these days)! Alas, music reviews is a …
Get the f**k out of here! (aka the Fuck Lungs album review)
Fuck Lungs - Honeysuckle (Already Dead Tapes & Records)
Fuck Lungs' first tape came out in 2016, but both its members have kept quite busy before and since. Drummer Joe Hess continues to play in Complainer - who released one of my favorite tapes last year - as well as in numerous improvised ensembles, and Curt Oren has toured relentlessly and …