The cassette culture refers to the practices associated with amateur production and distribution of music and sound art on compact cassette that emerged in the mid-1970s. The cassette was used by fine artists and poets for the independent distribution of new work. This article focuses on the independent music scene associated with the cassette that burgeoned internationally in the second half of the 1970s.
Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music includes a wide range of musical styles and sound-based creative practices that feature noise as a primary aspect.
Glitch is a genre of electronic music that emerged in the 1990s. It has been described as having an "aesthetic of failure" distinguished by the deliberate use of glitch-based audio media and other sonic artifacts.
SPK were an Australian industrial music and noise music group formed in 1978. They were fronted by mainstay member, Graeme Revell on keyboards and percussion. In 1980 the group travelled to the United Kingdom where they issued their debut album, Information Overload Unit. In 1983 Sinan Leong joined on lead vocals. The group disbanded in 1988. Two years later Revell and Leong relocated to the United States, where Revell works as a Hollywood film score composer. According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, SPK were "at the forefront of the local post-punk, electronic/experimental movement of the late 1970s ... [their] music progressed from discordant, industrial-strength metal noise to sophisticated and restrained dance-rock with strange attributes".
Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of noise music concerts in 1913–14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori.
Exhaust was a Canadian trio from Montreal featuring bass, drums, tape and bass clarinet, active from 1995 to 2012. The members were Aidan Girt (drums), Gordon Krieger and Mike Zabitsky.
PBK is a composer that works in the genres of Noise, Drone and/or Ambient music.
Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music. The sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerrilla sign ontology utilising video art, film, hypertext and other documents.
Vampire Rodents was a sound collage and experimental music ensemble based out of Phoenix, Arizona, although its core members originally came from Canada. The creative nucleus of the project comprised vocalist and composer Daniel Vahnke and keyboardist Victor Wulf. Daniel Vahnke was primarily influenced by 20th-century classical and avant-garde music, whereas Wulf drew from new age, ambient and synth-driven pop music. Their work also dabbled in big band, bebop, musique concrète, industrial, electro, Indian classical and Greek music.
The early dark wave band Browning Mummery began in Sydney in 1983, formed by Australian electronic musician Andrew Lonsdale, as both a collaborative and solo entity for electronic sound works.
Launched from Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1983 as a bimonthly publication, the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine utilized the audio cassette medium to publish and distribute audio art, no wave noise music, electroacoustic music, contemporary classical music, spoken word tracks, tango, early computer music, sound poetry, post-industrial music, contemporary classical music from China, Fluxus sound events and musique concrète sound collages. It was in activity for the ten years of 1983–1993. During that time 27 issues were produced. Original funding came from the artist group Colab.
Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by Masami Akita, best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists.
Power electronics is a style of noise music that typically consists of static, screeching waves of feedback, analogue synthesizers making sub-bass pulses or high frequency squealing sounds; with (sometimes) screamed and distorted vocals with hateful and offensive lyrics. The genre is noted for its influence from industrial.
Sampledelia is sample-based music that uses samplers or similar technology to expand upon the recording methods of 1960s psychedelia. Sampledelia features "disorienting, perception-warping" manipulations of audio samples or found sounds via techniques such as chopping, looping or stretching. Sampladelic techniques have been applied prominently in styles of electronic music and hip hop, such as trip hop, jungle, post-rock, and plunderphonics.
Randy Greif is a noise music composer who often incorporates electronic music and musique concrete collage with spoken word and field recordings.
Stanley Keith Bowsza, better known by the pseudonym Minóy, was an American electronic musician and sound artist. He was a major figure in the DIY noise music and homemade independent cassette culture scene of the 1980s. He released over 100 compositions.
Generator Sound Art is an experimental arts and culture organization based in New York City, co-owned by the sound artists Gen Ken Montgomery and Scott Konzelmann. It focuses upon the work of dedicated Sound Artists, and is an umbrella organization that either facilitated or continues to facilitate the activities of the Generator Gallery / exhibition space, the Generations Unlimited audio recording label, and a second, eponymous audio recording label. Generator as a physical gallery / exhibition space existed in the East Village and then in Chelsea from 1989–1992.
Rik Rue is an Australian experimental musician, and sound artist, known for his audio collages in recordings and live performance.
Walls of Genius is an avant-garde music ensemble from Colorado. They participated in the 1980s Cassette Culture and experimented with psychedelic improvisations, free-jazz, punk-rock, uninhibited and manic deconstructions of pop, jazz and country-western standards to musique concrète, industrial noise and sound collages. Walls Of Genius was both reviled and loved by the Cassette Culture. Walls Of Genius was active from 1982-1985 and revived in 2014.
