Cassette Only Labels S/D

Hopefully there hasn't already been a thread on this -- I searched! Anyway, what are some good places to get tapes -- I recently bought a couple things from here: http://nunewage.blogspot.com and have been enjoying listening to this drone-y type stuff in the car (where a tape player is my only listening option). What are some other labels that are doing tape-only stuff? I would buy those damn Mississippi Records tapes if I didn't have to go to Portland to do so.

Sloow Tapes: http://sloowtapes.blogspot.com/

Beautiful colourful sleeves.

Sick Head Tapes: http://www.geocities.com/sickheadtapes/index.html

Local weirdness from Glasgow & environs, run by Mr. Nackt Insecten.

I haven't dug into this enough, but it might provide a place to start:

http://c60radio.wordpress.com/

This guy also blogs about tapes, especially stuff from Vancouver:

http://planobsolete.blogspot.com/

Sloow Tapes are great

Cool! I'm going to check these out ... I don't know, I'm not even the hugest noise/drone kinda dude, but I've found myself really enjoying listening to that kind of stuff while driving. Something kind of perfect about speeding down I-25 in Colorado with the Rocky Mountains and some serious droooooooone.

i buy tapes now and again. id rather spend $5 on a tape than a cdr. It will last longer at least

Xpressway! From New Zealand. And Shrimper. I've got a few others in my stash. Have to get one of those cassette - to - mp3 thingies one of these days....

I like Woodsmoke and Blackest Rainbow (actually they probly do CDRs as well... ehh) at the moment. I used to pick up Fuck It Tapes stuff on the regular but it doesn't seem to get distroed in the UK anymore and is gone by the time I get wind of it

fuck it tapes stuff sells out as soon as it gets posted on vlv.

we talkin' old or new here?

Old: Audiofile, Cause & Effect, Harsh Reality, XXX, Pogus, Bain Total, Fresh Sounds, etc etc

New: RRR still puts out some good stuff, whoever put out that Christina Carter "Texas Working Blues" tape, um... I'm more out of the loop on new stuff.

Third Mind, Ladd/Frith, and United Dairies also put out great cassette-only stuff but then they moved on to LPs.

ROIR went seriously downhill after they sold out and started releasing CDs.

S.O.U.L. (side of unequal length) put out some great tapes. i think they might still be going.

from the old days (early 90s), toytown was my favourite tape label. wish i'd bought more of them than i did, i'll probably never track down that sukpatch tape i slept on, among others.

snatch tapes

Blackest Rainbow did that Christiana Carter tape, I liked that one too

Matching Head!

Mr Culver's been doing that shit since well before releasing tapes became a boutique, anti-cdr stance! That discography is woefully incomplete tho.

Also from the past, Xpresssway and Shrimper dictated my youth.

Can someone explain to me what reason beyond hipster elitism would anyone have to run a cassette-only label in this day and age? Unless these labels are all in those Third World countries where cassettes are still a dominant format.

Cheaper than vinyl.

Same reasons it initially emerged as a practical format for DIY stuff.

And I don't think it's hipster elitism to say that cassettes are also nice objects!

Fuck It Tapes is good.

But CD-Rs have better sound quality, don't require a player that most people don't own anymore, and (I assume) are cheaper to print than cassettes these days. So I can really see no reason for releasing music on cassette only besides hipsterism.

"Hipster elitism"? Not necessarily. Some agenda other than just getting sounds into ears? Most definitely. These days, cassettes are a MUCH less practical format for "DIY stuff" than CDRs or electronic distribution. The fact that most cassette-only labels produce handcrafted editions of, like, 33 pieces tends to drive this point home with a hammer.

Speaking generously, it's an artform -- speaking cynically, it's the nadir of obscurantist commodity fetishization.

I mean, why would an artist produce a limites series of prints, Tuomas? Is "hipsterism" the only possible explanation?

I'd say cassette as an (art) object is even worse than CD (I still remember how awful the cover art looked on cassettes when they were a common medium), the only reason it (apparently) has an aura of coolness is because it is an obsolete form that had its heyday in the 80s.

I mean, why would an artist produce a limites series of prints, Tuomas? Is "hipsterism" the only possible explanation?

So the point of cassette releases is to prevent people from making more copies than what was originally produced, which inevitably happens with CDS these days?

Tuomas, cdrs dont last as long as tapes. Plus theres been a DIY tape culture for many years.

Tuomas, dude, cassette as a medium (or "format", if you insist) exist for a lot of really obvious reasons. To sidestep the de-signification of music and music-objects as legit artwork, for one. To make the produced object mean something, to give it a real identity, a selfness. And, yeah, in many ways its presence in this moment is probably due to the associations and properties of the cassette object itself. Its homemadeness, it's obsolescence, it's cruddiness. The fact that it can't be perfectly replicated and distributed, and thus hangs onto its selfness in the face of attempts to erase it.

Again, why is art made scarce? This isn't unique to cassette-only labels...

and because tapes last and cdrs DONT

And because it's pretty funny to get people like Tuomas' backs up with so little effort

I don't get why Tuomas hates cassettes so much on labels he would never buy from of music he wouldn't like then label it hipsterish.

Isn't it increasingly difficult to even find tapes to record on anymore?

www.nightpeople.org
is run by the guys from raccoo-oo-oon. they put out some really great stuff.

actually, it's www.night-people.org

actually some old sealed blank chrome tapes sell for STUPID money on ebay.
There's online shops you can buy tapes from in bulk for reasonable prices.

The CDRs thing is weird, HGN. I have CDRs from, like, 15 years ago that still play. And tapes can be demagnetized, degrade significantly with every play, etc. It's not like the durability of one over the other is so clear-cut as you suggest.

best tape label in my humble opinion would be Monorail Trespassing. Great choice of music and on an aesthetic level as well. Beautiful tapes

http://monorailtrespassing.com/

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10-X-TDK-FE-9O-MINUITE-BLANK-STANDARD-CASSETTE-TAPES_W0QQitemZ370138111913QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Music_Cassettes_GL?hash=item370138111913&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

you used to get those for £4.99 for a pack of 10 in woolworths

I'm certainly not one to fetishize tapes -- I just want some stuff to play in my car that aren't old Neil Young bootlegs. But with these cassette only releases, I can kinda see the (pleasing?) tension between the supposed disposability of the medium and the limited edition nature of the music. If that makes sense?

Tuomas, dude, cassette as a medium (or "format", if you insist) exist for a lot of really obvious reasons. To sidestep the de-signification of music and music-objects as legit artwork, for one. To make the produced object mean something, to give it a real identity, a selfness. And, yeah, in many ways its presence in this moment is probably due to the associations and properties of the cassette object itself. Its homemadeness, it's obsolescence, it's cruddiness. The fact that it can't be perfectly replicated and distributed, and thus hangs onto its selfness in the face of attempts to erase it.

Well, the reasons cassette labels exist now are somewhat different than when cassette began as a distribution medium. Originally, the cassette medium did challenge the "legit artwork" aspect of music in the same way cd-r and downloads do now - degrading the objecthood of the musical commodity by reproducing its "essence" as data, with only a modicum of "decoration." In terms of legit cassette releases - it was inferior in aesthetic objecthood and sound quality to vinyl. The last couple sentences of your explanation do bear a resemblance to a hipster ethos: the fashionability of the abject, the fear of erasure through co-optation, etc. I think Tuomas has a point, but I do agree with you that it is a bit of oversimplification.

i have been pretty disappointed with everything i've heard off of that night people label, so people be warned.

my favorite tape labels are new age tapes/cassettes/pacific city, which have evolved beyond tape-only to all types of formats in the last few years. they're all part of james ferraro of the skaters' musical empire, and even though a LOT is released it's all still of an insanely high quality.

the music (esp lamborghini crystal, edward flex, and liquid metal) seems to be built upon manipulation of loops recorded to tape, so releasing the material on tape is a pretty logical choice. ferraro has always been great with this type of aesthetic, and the types of hiss, warp, and warble that you can really only get with a cassette player are nicely emphasized.

check out these albums (apparently ripped from both cassette and cd-r)
vodka soap - shee ro gateway temples
monopoly child star searchers - gitchii manitou
edward flex presents... maui
james ferraro - marble surf

monopoly child star searchers is Spencer from Skaters fyi, but yeah, good action.

The last couple sentences of your explanation do bear a resemblance to a hipster ethos: the fashionability of the abject, the fear of erasure through co-optation, etc. I think Tuomas has a point, but I do agree with you that it is a bit of oversimplification.

― sarahel

I disagree with this, though not entirely. "The fashionablity of the abject" may currently be hip (and has been for, what, 20 years now?), but it's also a valid aesthetic stance, and WR2 basically homemade cassette tapes, it has political implications, too. Same goes for "the fear of erasure through co-option." This stance is usually discussed in terms of hipster vs. straight culture opposition, but it also applies to attempts to make distinctive, self-maintaining works of art in what's typically viewed as a commercial medium. I.e., this could be "hipsterism", but doesn't have to be. Depends on the artistic approach, and depends even more on how we interpret it.

Matching Head!

Mr Culver's been doing that shit since well before releasing tapes became a boutique, anti-cdr stance! That discography is woefully incomplete tho.

― myopic_void, Tuesday, 20 January 2009 15:08 (5 hours ago) Bookmark

Culver ftw def.

"The fashionablity of the abject" may currently be hip (and has been for, what, 20 years now?), ... "the fear of erasure through co-option." This stance is usually discussed in terms of hipster vs. straight culture opposition, ... I.e., this could be "hipsterism", but doesn't have to be. Depends on the artistic approach, and depends even more on how we interpret it.

So you agree that it bears a resemblance to a hipster ethos. I agree with you that it isn't solely hipsterism, or it could be, but doesn't have to be.

sure this is a rainbow coalition over here

Not that I'm even that deep into cassette culture but I could give a flying fuck whether it does or doesn't bear a resemblance to a h****** ethos given that in almost all my interaction with it this is music made, distributed and listened to by obsessive shut-in dorks. The chances of people being off-the-cuff impressed by the fact you wilfully listen to music released on cassette is very small indeed

have been pretty disappointed with everything i've heard off of that night people label, so people be warned.

― all-seeing eye of horus (psychgawsple), Tuesday, January 20, 2009 3:50 PM (Yesterday)

that sucks, man. even the raccoo-oo-oon stuff?
there's a free download of a ryan garbes tape on the site. check it out. good stuff.

i dug raccoo-oo-oon a lot around the time of the '... is night people' record, but i think a lot of the releases they try to get away with on the label need some serious work (thinking of changeling, social junk, teeth mountain, etc). i dig pocahaunted on ocassion, but with a lot of this stuff i'd rather just listen to a blues control record instead. i'll check out that ryan garbes though, and i've enjoyed most of the other 'mythos folkways' releases so maybe i'll give the new one a shot too.

in my old school roll call I forgot the Sound Of Pig label, great stuff there.

great 2011 night people comp available for download on their website http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/np/index.html

night-people have put out some really good stuff - that comp is almost entirely good stuff

good stuff good stuff argh

white woods tape highly recommended

i'm going to get it their song on this that closes it off is a jam

not not fun isn't a tape only label but they do a lot of tapes and i've really liked probably three-quarters of their tape releases from the last 12 months, partic the maria minerva and angel eyes cs

http://ginjoha.blogspot.com/

night people records rules.

yeah they've done some good things

been enjoying the trailblazer and pageants tapes

did you hear the dirty-beaches tapes on night people. really great. much more electo-y, but with that outsider, loner, spooky vibe.

yeah, i got the trailblazer self-titled EP. been listening to it a lot.

I really like Ekhein's design and curation, ft. acts like Mark Lord (f.k.a. Kites), Earth Crown, The Compass Rose, Rene Hell:
http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/labels/ekhein.html

big fat 2011 dud

what's the 2011 dud?

And because it's pretty funny to get people like Tuomas' backs up with so little effort

― Pescetarian Reich (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:44 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is still the best reason for doing tape labels