By dint of some pre-holiday goodwill on the part of my employer I managed to catch a fantastic show at Printed Matter on Friday afternoon. Arranged at the back of their new space on 10th Ave. (conveniently located across the street from the meticulously curated 192 Books), Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now focused on some recent iterations of a community of musicians who for decades has released their music on home-recorded cassette tapes. Before MySpace, and even before indie rockers discovered the virtues of the four-track in the lo-fi '90s, a largely unnoticed, loose affiliation of artists created music in their bedrooms and traded tapes in networks that continue to exist outside the typical systems of music distribution. Years ago, Autonomedia published a landmark project called Cassette Mythos documenting the early years of this movement. The show at Printed Matter concentrated on recent artists and labels working in the thriving noise, psychedelic, and experimental music scenes, such as those showcased in the now annual NoFun Fest. Labels represented included Hanson Records, American Tapes, Drone Disco, Fag Tapes, Tone Filth, Heavy Tapes, RRRecords, and Animal Disguise, among others.
We're currently in an age when anyone can have a band and, at least according to the New York Times, can attract an audience and become famous through the Internet. Initially, cassette culture arose out of necessity because it was the easiest and cheapest way to create and distribute idiosyncratic music to a small audience of like-minded enthusiasts. Today, digital recording tools have made it easier than ever to make music, and the Internet now enables anyone with a decent connection to upload music and reach the masses. Web sites like AudioStreet and CD Baby have massified the phenomenon that the earliest cassette traders pioneered, taking advantage of the democratizing possibilities of electronic media and circumventing the traditional model for music distribution.. for better or worse. Whereas a couple of decades ago, there was a virtue in obscurity, the post-Nirvana age gave birth to a suffocating exhibitionism in "alternative" music. If it is possible for anyone to be a star, many are answering the call and trying to become one, which does not necessarily make for an innovative environment. In such a context, what does a willfully obscure cassette culture tell us, and why does it still need to exist?
Visiting Leaderless, I was struck by the sense that these artists use the cassette not only as a recording medium, but perhaps more importantly as an aesthetic artifact. From austere and even elegant packages by Prurient to cheaply photocopied cards containing cassettes covered with melted goop, the tapes included in Leaderless have an often slapdash but refreshing physicality that is disappearing in music in the digital age. In many of the pieces on display, the packaging becomes an integral part of the artistic statement, echoing the alienating sound coated onto the ribbon inside. The cassettes are often seductive in their crypticness, and off-putting in their sheer juvenile delinquency, sometimes simultaneously. (Skull Erection, anyone?) Many contain only a few minutes worth of tape. There is little information about the artists, making each cassette a practically anonymous missive. Most are priced cheaply, and available only through mailorder. The average listener would be very reluctant to call the sound on many of them music.
For the cassette audience, enjoyment of these tapes is not only enjoyment of the sound that comes through one's speakers, but also the awareness that one is privy to something willfully marginal. Difficult to find, the underground cassette is a talisman of one's belonging to an arcane sect, even as "noise" has morphed into a genre with its own stars. (Check out Wolf Eyes, who have recorded for American Tapes, for example.) For the artists represented in Leaderless who have gained some notoriety through more conventional releases, the fact that they continue to operate in this parallel universe suggests that the tactile immediacy of this obsolete medium offers other unique opportunities.
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