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.
Front Line Assembly (FLA) is a Canadian electro-industrial band formed by Bill Leeb in 1986 after leaving Skinny Puppy. FLA has developed its own sound incorporating elements of electronic body music and electro-industrial. The band's membership has rotated through the years, including Michael Balch, Rhys Fulber, and Chris Peterson, all of whom are associated with several other acts.
Information Society is an American electronic band from Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota, initially active from 1982 to 1997, primarily consisting of Kurt Harland Larson, Paul Robb, and James Cassidy; the latter two reconvened the band in 2006, initially with Christopher Anton as lead vocalist, then with Harland rejoining them as lead vocalist by 2008.
Sex Gang Children are an early gothic rock and post-punk band that formed in early 1982 in Brixton in London, England. Although the original group only released one official studio album, their singles and various other tracks have been packaged into numerous collections, and they remain one of the more well-known bands of the early Batcave scene and have reformed for new albums and touring at various times since the early 1990s.
A Certain Ratio are an English post-punk band formed in Greater Manchester in 1977 by Peter Terrell (guitar), Simon Topping, Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson (drums), with Martha Tilson (vocals) joining soon after.
Godflesh are an English industrial metal band from Birmingham. The group formed in 1982 under the original title O.P.D. but did not release any complete music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick and B. C. Green renamed the band and decided to use a drum machine for percussion. Melding heavy metal with industrial music and later with electronic music and dub, Godflesh's sound is widely regarded as a foundational influence on other industrial metal and post-metal acts and as significant to both experimental and extreme metal.
Civilization Phaze III is the sixty-third album by Frank Zappa, released posthumously as a double album on October 31, 1994. It was the first studio album of new material from Zappa since 1986's Jazz from Hell. The album marks the third part of a conceptual continuity that started with We're Only in It for the Money (1968), with the second part being a re-edited version of Zappa's 1967 album Lumpy Gravy. Zappa described the album as a "two-act opera", but in lieu of traditional recitatives and arias, it alternates brief spoken word passages with musical numbers created on a Synclavier using a combination of sampled and synthesized sounds. Much of the sampled material in the second half of the album was originally recorded by Ensemble Modern and other musicians to Zappa's specifications.
Final is a project of English musician Justin Broadrick, creator of the band Godflesh, which he started when he was 13 years old. Unlike Godflesh, Final is primarily electronic in nature, taking on a space-like, dark ambient sound.
Remission is a 1984 EP by Canadian electro-industrial band Skinny Puppy, their record label debut and first release with Nettwerk. The 12-inch EP originally featured six tracks, then, a year later in 1985, it was released on cassette with five additional songs that lengthened the release to a full album. This expansion became the default version of Remission.
Nowell Rhys Fulber is a Canadian electronic musician and producer. He is a member of Front Line Assembly and Delerium, along with Bill Leeb. He also records under his own name and under the name Conjure One.
Die Krupps is a German industrial metal/EBM band, formed in 1980 by Jürgen Engler and Bernward Malaka in Düsseldorf.
The Modern Art was a psychedelic rock band formed by Gary Ramon in the 1980s. It had a loose lineup that never played gigs but did see the release of two studio albums and a number of self-produced cassettes. Ramon disbanded the group out of a desire "to make a more live-sounding group that could go out and play". Many Modern Art members subsequently joined Ramon in various incarnations of his new band, Sun Dial.
The Clean was a New Zealand indie rock band formed in Dunedin in 1978. They have been described as the most influential band to come from the Flying Nun label, which recorded many artists associated with the "Dunedin sound", and one of the first bands to be described as "indie rock".
XP8 was an Italian electronic group. The band started in 2001 as a trio, composed of Marco Visconti, Marko Resurreccion, and singer Paul Toohill.
Attrition are an English electronic music band, formed in Coventry in 1980 by Martin Bowes and Julia Niblock. The band emerged from the experimental post-punk scene of the early 1980s and, along with other groups such as Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, and In the Nursery, greatly contributed to the development of industrial music in the UK.
Brighter Now is a 1982 album by The Legendary Pink Dots. The album was rereleased in 2008. Ned Raggett off Allmusic noted that "the sound is certainly among the roughest and sparest of any LPD release, and in many ways is a tentative effort that is more a product of its time than anything else." It was released as a cassette before its official LP release in 1982. In Phaze's initial cassette release was limited to 300 copies, with two different covers. The Art Nouveau edition is limited to 60 copies, and is a split release with the LPD's on one side and Portion Control's Gaining Momentum LP on the other. The In Phaze LP edition is limited to 1,000 copies, while their cassette version is a promo featuring an LPD textual discography, as well as a short story by Edward. All Terminal Kaleidoscope/PIAS editions have a slightly different cover from the original, while the Soleilmoon edition features new cover artwork and a lyric booklet.
Yeht Mae was an electro-industrial band from California which began in 1988 by vocalist and keyboard programmer Jeremy Daw. Daw was later joined by vocalist Lynda Sterling and released two self-distributed cassette demos. Their first CD 1000 Veins was released by the British gothic/industrial label Gymnastic Records whose albums were pressed in Germany.
Konstruktivits is a British industrial band. Formed in 1982, they were mostly active in the 1980s, with recording activity continuing until today.
Third Mind Records was a British independent record label, founded in February 1983 by Gary Levermore.
Drug Church is an American post-hardcore band from Albany, New York, United States. The band has released four albums, as well as several EPs.
