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.
The Evolution Control Committee is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson in Columbus in 1986. They create music that falls within the borders of the sound collage genre, typically using uncleared and illegal samples from various sources as a form of protest against copyright law. The ECC also produces numerous audio experiments that goes outside regular composition methods, including the disfiguring of compact discs in a live performance known as "CDestruction". They have produced a few video works as well, ranging from re-edited 50's corporate shorts to Teddy Ruxpin reciting the works of William S. Burroughs. Other activities include culture jamming.
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.
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.
Tiamat is a Swedish metal band that formed in Stockholm in 1987 and led by Johan Edlund. The band went through a number of stylistic changes, usually leaning toward gothic metal.
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.
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".
A demo is a song or group of songs typically recorded for limited circulation or for reference use, rather than for general public release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas in a fixed format, such as cassette tape, compact disc, or digital audio files, and to thereby pass along those ideas to record labels, producers, or other artists.
XP8 was an Italian electronic group. The band started in 2001 as a trio, composed of Marco Visconti, Marko Resurreccion, and singer Paul Toohill.
Waldemar Sorychta is a Polish heavy metal record producer and musician who has lived in Germany since 1982.
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.
Konstruktivits is a British industrial band. Formed in 1982, they were mostly active in the 1980s, with recording activity continuing until today.
Sublime is an American rock band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band's original lineup consisted of Bradley Nowell, Eric Wilson (bass), and Bud Gaugh (drums). Lou Dog, Nowell's dalmatian, was the mascot of the band. Nowell died of a heroin overdose in 1996, resulting in the band's breakup. In 1997, songs such as "What I Got", "Santeria", "Wrong Way", "Doin' Time", and "April 29, 1992 (Miami)" were released to U.S. radio.
Ritual was an early 1980s Harrow-based post-punk band that were later aligned with the early UK-based gothic rock movement. The group is commonly associated with Death Cult, which two Ritual members later joined.
"Alien Days" is the first single released from MGMT, the third album by MGMT, which was released as a cassette single on April 20, 2013. VanWyngarden explains the song as the feeling when "a parasitic alien is in your head, controlling things". The music video of this song was filmed by indie director Sam Fleischner, which was the second video released for the promotion of the album.
Hookworms were an English five-piece neo-psychedelic rock band from Leeds/Halifax that formed in 2010. Between 2010 and 2018 the band released 3 studio albums and became known for their live shows.
Third Mind Records was a British independent record label, founded in February 1983 by Gary Levermore.
The Spook School were a British four-piece indie pop band from Edinburgh, Scotland. The name is a reference to the Glasgow School.
