Cassette Culture- Peter Richards [ 5/3/2007 - 20:20 ] #
Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now
Exhibition on view from May 12 – May 26, 2007
Opening Reception and Book Launch: Saturday, May 12, 5 – 7 PM
Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to announce an exhibition surveying
contemporary American cassette culture. Leaderless: Underground
Cassette Culture Now will open on May 12 and run through May 26.
Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Streets.
From bedrooms and dorm rooms, garages and dingy basements, Printed
Matter and Heavy Tapes have gathered the leaders of the American
underground tape culture movement—a geographically and generationally
diverse community centered around the thriving noise, psych, and
experimental music scenes. Such an exhibition might lead one to believe
that “tapes are back” though the truth is that they never left, having
been the chosen medium of this particular community from the late 70s
onward. Unlike manufactured CDs or vinyl, tapes are analog, cheap and
easily made at home with accessible and rudimentary equipment (i.e. no
computers), making them the logical choice for a community that is
constantly evolving and producing. Tapes also offer a unique
perspective for those who are put off by the ubiquity and harsh
aesthetics often associated with CDRs.
For the duration of the exhibition, Printed Matter’s back room will be
transformed into a cassette shop—with hundreds of titles exhibited and
available for purchase. Boom boxes will give audience members the
opportunity to sample and explore. Guest curators (among them Thurston
Moore from the iconoclastic noise band Sonic Youth, Chris Freeman—the
founder of cassette distributor Fusetron, and Dominick Fernow of
Hospital Productions) will also present out-of-print cassettes from
their collections.
Labels to be featured include 23 Productions (WI), AA (MI), American
Tapes (MI), Animal Disguise (MI), Bone Tooth Horn, Callow God (CA),
Cherried Out Merch (OR), Chondritic Sound (MI), Drone Disco (OH),
Ecstatic Peace (MA), Fag Tapes (MI), Fuckit Tapes (NY), Gods of Tundra
(MI), Hanson Records (MI), Heavy Tapes (NY), Hospital Productions (NY),
Iatrogenesis (OR), Ides (IL), Friendship Bracelet (MA), Loveless Tapes
(NJ), Middle James CO (ON/CA), Monorail Trespassing (CA), Nihilist
Productions (IL), Not Not Fun (CA), Psychform (WA), RRRecords (MA),
Rundownsun (BC), Since 1972 (NY), Spite (NY), Stammer Tapes (NY),
Swampland Noise (CA), Throne Heap (NY), Tone Filth (MN), Trash Ritual
(NY), and Troniks (CA), among many others.
To celebrate the launch, experimental tape manipulator G. Lucas Crane vs Non-horse will perform.
Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now coincides with the No Fun
Fest—a four day noise festival that will take place at the Hook in Red
Hook, Brooklyn from May 17 – 20th. Now in itsfourth year, No Fun Fest
features some of the world’s premiere noise musicians and practitioners.
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