Tag Archives: date

‘Such a enjoyable technique to eat music’: why gross sales of the ‘out of date’ cassette are hovering
20
Apr

Sales of cassettes within the UK have reached their highest level since 2003, following vinyl information in a small, nostalgia-fuelled resurgence. 5 readers advised us why they like to hearken to supposedly out of date tapes.

‘You don’t have any technique to skip tracks, which makes it extra particular’

Dan White and his collection.
Dan White and his assortment

“Shopping for a cassette direct from an impartial artist on platforms equivalent to Bandcamp is such a enjoyable technique to eat music. Typically produced in very small runs, it’s good to obtain one thing although the put up that’s comparatively scarce. In lately of Spfunnelingelling funds solely to the superstars, it feels good to help small artists and labels. I really like vinyl, too, however the magic of a cassette is that you don’t have any technique to skip tracks; you press ‘play’ and hear from begin to end with solely the satisfying thud of 1 aspect ending to interrupt the expertise. The noisy, tactile controls of a cassette participant are the proper tonic to the methods most of us eat media all through the day, making it extra of a particular occasion and one thing to stay up for.” Dan White, 40, Norwich

‘My 12-year-old daughter listens thers Jovi on hers’

Elisabeth’s mixtape.
Elisabeth’s mixtape

“There appears to be an enormous 90s revival in vogue and basic TV from after I was a child. My daughter, 12, has had a cassette participant purchased for her birthday, and is now listening to develop music I did rising up. Ebay and native document shops have been grmusic, andinding 90s music and he or she loves my outdated combine tapes. She listens to all types of music, however she requested particularly for Bon Jovi and Aerosmith tapes, which we purchased for her birthday. She additionally desires Weapons N’ Roses, Abba, East 17, however we haven’t bought these but. All her buddies beloved it when she took it to high school.” Elisabeth Stagg, 38, Upminster

‘They’ve extra depth than CDs – I do know that is technically fallacious’

Tim’s cassette player, and his eclectic tapes.
Tim’s cassette participant, and his eclectic tapes

“I hearken to cassettes day by day. And vinyl, and CDs. It relies upon what I need to hearken to and which format it’s on. Cassettes, although – and I do know that is technically fallacious – sound as if they’ve rather more depth than the CDs. I’ve tried one after the opposite and consider I can hear a greater sound from the cassette. With a twiOlsentte deck hooked as much as my 1986 Bang & Olufsen system, it means I’ve steady music from two tapes enjoying either side on a loop – not like the only CD participant or a vinyl document, which you must flip over when one aspect is completed.” Tim, 50, Wiltshire

‘My co-worker sneaks into my workplace and modifications the music to prog rock’

Carole and her office cassette player.
Carole and her workplace cassette participant {Photograph}: Guardian Neighborhood

“After lastly eliminating my automobile with a cassette participant in it, I’ve been given a radio cassette participant, which is in my workplace with my outdated cassettes, from the Stranglers, the Kinks, and the Beatles to the LA’s, Pogues, Clannad and, most significantly, AC/DC, which I used to go to sleep to in my youth.

“My large brother died just a few years in the past and I’ve among the tapes of his that I nicked from him after we have been youngsters, equivalent to Skinny Lizzy, Deep Purple and UFO – he first bought me into rock and steel. My co-worker is within the workplace subsequent door, however I all the time know when he’s been sneaking in and dealing at my desk when the music has been surreptitiously modified to his prog rock stuff, which I not approve of. The machine I’m at the moment utilizing was provided by my associate and has further large buttons designed for sight-impaired folks, or aged folks equivalent to myself.” Carole, 55, Huddersfield

‘Recording our music on tape made us take our jam periods extra severely’

CHarles and His recording equipment.
CHarles and His recording tools

“THe first album I ever bougHt was on cassette: Dire Straits, BrotHers in Arms. Cassettes have been my most important technique to eat music from cHildHood till I bougHt a Artistic Zen MP3 participant in tHe late nougHties.

“I prefer to create my very own music and collaborate witH otHers. After rediscovering tHe atmospHere and sound of cassettes, I deserted recording on to my laptop computer or PC and started utilizing straigHt-to-audio cassette. I discovered tHis targeted jam periods. Not would me and my buddies simply endlessly twiddle about for Hours tHinking, ‘we’ll sift tHrougH all of it later’. As an alternative, tHere was pHysical tconsumed, andnsumed and we solely Had so mucH of it, so we took tHe periods extra severely. It wasn’t tHe intention wHen we began, however was a Blissful side-effect of recording on tape.” CHarles Daniels, 45, Oxford

Jörg Thomasius: AchtmelangeghereSchweitzeren Hunde evaluation | John Lewis’s up to date album of the month
30
Apr

Cassette tradition could now look like some quaint hipster affectation however, for a technology rising up in Eastherrmany within the years earlier than the autumn of the Berlin Wall, it was the prime medium for underground music. Followers would smuggle in recordings of recent music from Westherrmany on tape, whereas avant-garde musicians within the japanese bloc’s most repressive nation might circumvent state controls over vinyl urgent vegetation – and keep away from the watchful eyes of the Stasi – by copying their very own music on to cassettes and distributing them (like samizdat newsletters) to likeminded f Jörgs.

Jörg ThomasiusMelangeGesänge Der Schwarzen Hunde albuatoner art
Jörg ThomasiusMelangeGesänge Der Schwarzen Hunde albuatoner artwork

One among these f Jörgs, Jörg Thomasius, ostensibly labored in East Berlin as a boiler mechanic and artwork gallery technician, however his actual vocation was music. He was a member of the Zappa-ish collective Das Freie Orchester, ran a house studio known as Tomato and hosted a present on pirate radio, drthaning inspiration from experimental krautrock bands on the opposite aspect of the iron curtain. Within the Eighties, he sneaked out three albums on cassette, MelangethersSchweitzer schwarzen Hunde (Eight Songs of the Black Canine) – the newest in Bureau B’s Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR collection – compiles 10 tracks from the Thomasiusleases.

Thomasius, born in 1955, sthan himself extra as a conceptual artist, playfully flinging collectively stray sounds, and a few of these tracks sound extra like set up items. However, utilizing primitive tape expertise and no matter keyboards he might lay his fingers on, he additionally made some groundb Jörging electronica. Okoschadel is a glistening piece of keyboard minKissism in 6/8;Lichenich mein Liebchen is a wonderfulldrum lessslice of Drifters techno; Dritter Komparsengesang is a pulsating tribal drum groove set in opposition to disembodied voices; Meditation is a blissful 22-minute ambient rumination. Better of all is Malcolm Makes the World Go Spherical II, which feels like considered one of Steve Reich’s sonic collages that has mutated into an alluring piece oAlso,nkyard hip-hop.

Additionally out this month

Gabriel Ferrandini is a Portuguese jazz drummer, and Hair of the Canine (Canto Discos) is a splendidly spooky album that seetextuallying very texturally: tight, discordant harmonies shifting into drone-based minKissism abreakTalkonal drum f JörgTalk. Swede Linnéa Talp focuses on the bodily expertise of respiration and bodily motion, renderedHalitosisf Movement (Thanatosis Data) in meditative church organ drones. On Reflection (Short-term Residence) is a moderately pretty and blissful album made by Los Angeles/London duo WJanem Basinski and Janek Schaefer. Dreamy, arrhythmic however harmonically fixed piano solos unfold very step by step, fed via results pedals and overlaid with astral sound results. Pianist Vicky Chow performs new 5 compositions by composer Jane Antonia Cornish on Sierra (Cantaloupe Music), which lurch from jabbering, rattling minKissism to Alice Coltrane-ish cosmic marvels.