cassette noise - artists, labels, and scenes

[mshiflet]

Important Records new Cassauna series is really lovely. The all-cardstock packaging is pretty close to the cassette equivalent of a digipak:

[MRS]

Northam's Solar Night is one of the best things I've heard all year, format notwithstanding.

[fslmy]

can anyone recommend me a decent quality but not too expensive cassette player these days? I've been looking at a USB cassette player but it looks a bit low of quality. Would like to transfer some of my cassettes to digital.

[orangettecoleman]

can anyone recommend me a decent quality but not too expensive cassette player these days? I've been looking at a USB cassette player but it looks a bit low of quality. Would like to transfer some of my cassettes to digital.

Best thing to do would probably be to get a decent USB soundcard like an Edirol UA-1EX off of Ebay (they are cheap) and a secondhand tape deck from the thrift store. That's what I did, works great for listening and I can transfer to 24-bit FLAC if I want to digitize anything...

[mudd]

yeah, tape deck from ebay was my solution to the problem. i don't digitize much, but i've generally found the mac built-in sound card adequate for my intensions.

m

[Arvo]

I haven't seen anyone mention 905 tapes. I've probably bought tapes from them on the most regular basis of all of the labels I know. The roster is diverse and the quality of dubbing is solid. http://www.905tapes.com/

I'd also like to know where other people promote cassettes other than the yahoogroups and noise forums, I feel like I'm missing something, and surely many of these labels are not moving all of their tapes by way of mailing lists and review blogs alone....

[mudd]

http://www.animalpsi.com/ is the most up to date info source i can think of, at least for the psych/drone side of things. other than that i suspect forums and mailing lists are quite adequate for getting the word out. it's rare for anything to come out with more than 100 or so copies, don't really need that much noise.

905 tapes is good, for sure. their sean mccann double they put out last year is one of my favorites in his substantial catalog.

m

[LBx]

Two labels from Belgium that consistantly put out good stuff are Taped sounds (label changes name every now and then) check it here:
http://cetaceannationcommunications.blogspot.com/

And Sloow tapes who are more folky:
http://sloowtapes.blogspot.com/

the Hiiragi Fukuda sloow tape is excellent. it's also available (guilt) free at the FMA.

i'll check out the ^other^ as well...

I don't necessarily follow "cassette culture"

i can't be bothered either but i'm starting to think i should have a player.


also, a friends thing: www.prairiefiretapes.com

[LBx]

there is a fair amount of the La Musica stuff i'd love to hear as well...

http://www.discogs.com/label/La+Musica+Records (+ 100's more i'm sure.)

[/sigh]

[Robert G]

Sam Goldberg started a new one called Centre: http://www.discogs.com/label/Centre

[RJMyato]

I'd also like to know where other people promote cassettes other than the yahoogroups and noise forums, I feel like I'm missing something, and surely many of these labels are not moving all of their tapes by way of mailing lists and review blogs alone....

there's always facebook too.

[Snow Dog]

Some Norwegian labels:
Tape Rape: http://www.ambolthue.com/taperaperecord ... =Catalogue

Kassettkultur: http://www.kassettkultur.com/

TWR Tapes: http://twrtapes.blogspot.com/

On a sidenote: this is a fun site:
http://www.tapedeck.org/
search for your favourite brand of tapes.

[Gaendaal]

There's some good stuff coming out of Land Of Decay (http://lndofdecay.blogspot.com/), run by the guys from Locrian, which covers the hinterlands between noise and metal.

[horaflora]

also, a friends thing: http://www.prairiefiretapes.com

I love the KPLR tape on that label...

[RFKorp]

I've heard a couple KPLR tapes already. seems to be hard to find a bad one!

[mudd]

he has some vinyl coming out too.

my tape obsessions right now are ekhein, jugular forest, monorail trespassing, and 3 songs of lenin. special recognition to callow god/agents of chaos and gifts nobody wants as well.

i'm also really excited to have picked up the work/death on chondritic sound when i was at the hospital store of the weekend. this is one of the tapes that was apparently all ready to go when greh moved and kinda got everything thrown off schedule, so the copy i ordered more than a year ago may never arrive. it's a good tape, though.

actually hospital productions deserve mention too. several batches of really limited stuff of high quality - been listening to vatican shadow and force publique congo quite a bit lately and really enjoying. plus they were playing something in the store that sounded pretty cool that was apparently upcoming, too.

m

[RJMyato]

chondritic has released some undeniably great stuff but since the whole debacle of him ripping so many people off i doubt i'd ever actually order anything again.

good label that recently put out a local friend's tape: http://stunnedrecords.blogspot.com/
editions of 111 tapes with nice abstract artwork that goes with the kind of psych/droney style.

[fenneszfan]

I wish that casette wasn't making a resurgence sometimes, there's just oo many formats for me to try to keep up with. Although I secretly love it

[mudd]

that's a rather circular sentiment.

m

[bedouin]

[off topic warning]

I was given a very old replacement car with a radio/cassette player. I hadn't seen one of these for a long time. I have no tapes, and as the radio had no auto scan I ended up listening to MW frequencies between stations. Mostly hiss with tiny sparkles. When someone else was in the car, I would just switch it off.