Tapes 'n' Tapes 'n' Tapes

Tapes ‘n’ tapes ‘n’ tapes

CDs are, like, so last generation. Mp3s are just so outdated. So what musical releasing format has suddenly hit the mainstream like shit hitting a fan? Cassette releases, that’s what. Everyone from fanzines to the DIY masters that are the latest wave of up-and-coming bands are into it. Releasing your latest single on one of those plastic rectangular babies is like the new nu-rave, only with more colours and better music.

WORDS: EMMA TWINE

So who’s actually into this reversal back to the ‘good old days’ when a brick-sized Walkman was the latest in music-streaming technology, and why? What has drawn so many bands back to the crackly, low-quality punch that tapes throw? We caught up with some cassette label/enthusiasts to get to the root of the underground music scene’s new obsession. Philip St Clair-Burke (what a name) is one half of the small-time cassette record label Maximus Extreme, who release split cassettes. John Webb once told him he loved him, and he claims to have played b-ball with Obama.

Why did you choose cassettes to release on? Are you just too cool for the mainstream,or is there actually an audio benefit?
I guess that pretty much sums it up. Selling CD’s seems like a rip off, I mean, one CD is nothing. CD’s ain’t worth shit. Plus after I saw Will Smith on the Fresh Prince with a cassette there was no going back. Cassettes sound nice, lo-fi or whatever it is, and I wanted people to dance like it’s 1985, shoulder pads and everything.

Very true, I suppose tapes seem much less disposable. They’re like vinyl -maybe you’d spend £2 on a CD then scratch it after a week, but with tapes and records you have the novelty value as well as pretty sick music.
Oh for real, some people do look at it as a novelty though, which makes the seriousness of the whole record label connotations go. Which is nice – tapes are for party. No one wants to pull out their favourite tape and listen to it every day, everyone’s way too lazy for that, me included. Tapes are the glorified ‘best prize at a fun fair’. Along with dead goldfish.

But maybe the whole idea of tapes being less disposable or nostalgic items from your childhood lends more value to the music itself?
True. Against all the effort of not opening iTunes, listening to tape has some sweet benefits – crackly tracks and the music sounding more and more like Wavves each time it’s copied. No one can not like that. Have you got a Will Smith tape? The ultimate cassette – Will Smith in the summer time.

You should get bands to do Will Smith covers, then bang them together on the most pro cassette ever made.

That’ll be my John Webb bait. Paradise vendors inc. 006. I could sell the idea, win his heart.

A lot of the bands who choose tapes to release on are pretty similar to Wavves – all guitars and bad microphones. Do you think cassettes maybe appeal to them because they’re analogue’s answer to distortion pedals?
It’s either one or the other really – record with some fucked up microphones, or put it onto cassette. Unless you’re totally radical and do both. You know when you’re shit at guitar when you have to have the distortion pedal on the whole time, unless you’re an angry punk – then it’s just a given. But it’s not always the best idea to go straight to the broken mic and out-of-date technology, I’d rather listen to music recorded with a reel-to-reel and released on vinyl. I think the whole lo-fi thing can only work so much. Don’t get me wrong, it can sound good, but some douches just don’t know when to stop

Yeah, I suppose there’s a point when the novelty wares off, when it’s no longer ”OMG they’re so retro” but more ”I just want to hear what they’re actually playing”.

Angry and home-made only gets you so far. Unless you’re Will Smith, then you can do whatever the fuck you want.

Anonymous

tapes n tapes n tapes is the name of a band. you should have talked to them too hm?!

Emma Twine

bloody glad i talked to philip and not you then, 'bishopdante'

philip

@ bishopdante

"But it’s not always the best idea to go straight to the broken mic and out-of-date technology, I’d rather listen to music recorded with a reel-to-reel and released on vinyl."

bishopdante

The RIAA and music publishers lobbied & took legal action against DAT, arguing that consumers' ability to make perfect digital copies of music would destroy the market for commercial audio recordings. The opposition to DAT culminated in the passage of the resulting Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which, among other things, effectively imposed a tax on DAT devices and blank media.

bishopdante

This is what the poor quality of cassette really stands for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Kil...

bishopdante

Umm, no, cassette sounds weak. Just weak. The only thing it was good for was portability, and digital has just buried it for that. Back when I was 12, I used to do demos on a fostex 4 track. It sounded horrid, fizzy, hissy and flat. I used to have a walkman welded to my head 24/7. Seriously, fuck cassette. The only fun bit was spraying up the tapes. As a physical object, fun. As a sound playback format... poor.

Cassette tape was audio's biggest mistake, it was a miniaturised version of the 1/4" and 1/8" machines which sounded great, revox, studer, urei, ampex, etc. Thing is those things were huge. Analogue sound has to be quite big. Cassette never worked properly, it was engineered past the practical limits. It munched tapes, had hiss, wow, flutter, no bass, no treble. Gradually they improved the tape formulas with chrome & SA type tapes which could sound sort of OK, but overall the technology was deeply flawed in all the wrong ways.

Tape never died, it's in use in the very best recording studios around the world, loved for it's smooth, warm, beefy sound. But the only cool thing about the cassette was the plastic box. Those piddly little tape reels just aren't big enough to hold decent music. Even if you own a nakamichi dragon or top end sony professional machine, it just won't compare to the cheapest revox or urei reel to reel machine (and these are cheeap... get into that.).

My word is this: Tape is good. Tape does things that no other format can do, as any studio engineer will tell you. Cassette is the worst, shabbiest and poorest tape, not worth using short of dictaphone. It's not like a compact camera, which flavours and colours things. It's like those records you get in cereal packets, just really shoddy. Vinyl ain't about abysmal quality, and nor is tape. Cassette is like marshall valvestate, microsoft's first zune, austin allegro, or alcohol-free beer. It's not VHS, super 8, compact camera, photocopy distressed, vinyl fattened, valve warmed. Back in the day cassette was just disappointing. It's like an inkjet fax machine, it's the last knock-off quality iteration of a great technology. It's like digital radio.

This packaging design is quality though. Cassette tapes are a cute little physical artifact. Problem is the sound has no redeeming features at all. The high-speed copied commercial releases were the worst.

So tell you what, if you like the sound of cassette, why not go for dictaphone? it's mono, it sounds absolutely dreadful.

Another interesting thing is that the record companies deliberately killed DAT. They sued the companies to prevent them from making an affordable consumer player. The late 80s and 90s should have been a golden age of DAT coolness, cassette would have gone the way of the 8-track car player and laserdisk. A flawed, jokey technology with few redeeming features.

DAT walkmans would have been the size and cost of a mobile phone, £50 or £60, and sounded better than CD. Due to the court rulings as prosecuted by the PRS and ASCAP there was an industry wide rule that no DAT player could ever sell for less than $2000. It was a pro-only tool, rather than a magic consumer format.

So no, cassette ain't that cool, I find it a bit tragic. It represents a shitty corporate stitch up and unexciting lacklustre sound quality. It's the only time that there has ever been a major downgrade in sound quality in the progress of audio, and it represents all that's bad about 80s style corporate nastiness.

You won't find a cassette machine in any recording studio anywhere.

Pointless and mildly ignorant nostalgia.

George

But the pictures are of Suplex Cassettes releases!

Tapes ‘n’ tapes ‘n’ tapes

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