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Our tenth and final issue PEN APE has been created by Andy Cowan. It’s a trip back in time to his teenage bedroom, when his private press cassette label,
Let’s Make The Tea, briefly went public with the compilation A Wet Kiss And A Dry Martini.
While that 1984 affair showcased its compiler fidgeting with different styles under a battery of pseudonyms, this 14-track 2022 remodel does the same
but more covertly, amid stellar contributions from
Band Of Holy Joy,
Philip Kane,
White Star Bulb Company,
Paul Whitbread and
David Houghton.
Elsewhere original outliers Gling Shrilley and Mr Visage both resurface for the first time in 38 years. Where in hell have they been?
Accompanied by a full track-by-track breakdown, a history of Cowan’s first band Asbestos Feat, a set of postcards, martini recipes, safety matches, a sweet that should have been a Dobsons Fizz Bomb, cut up (and cellotaped) tape photos and the final text from the Tape Chapters (not that you can read it, but there's a PDF here), the whole kaboodle is lovingly wrapped inside an all-new A Wet Kiss And A Dry Martini tea towel by designer/field recorder Alan Beeson. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 10 made public: 20 December 2022. Issues 1-9 are below and this is the last issue of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital
version. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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Track listing -
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Our ninth issue TRIBE PATINA has been created by Olli Tipling and
Dani Ingham and started with sending them 20 blank C90 cassettes to use and
process - oxidising, eroding, re-copying, soaking, bleaching and combining with Gelatine printing, distilled vinegar, salt and hydrogen peroxide.
Each tape cover (corroded steel with sandblasted texts that will eventually disintegrate) comes with QR code sticker linking to a wealth of support material and each tape houses over 80 minutes of a new soundtrack of impermanence, loss and rebirth, the cyclical pathos of nature, shedding uncomfortable growth; using instruments, field recordings and found cassette tape samples, TRIBE PATINA ventures into raw landscapes of sound, that oscillate between natural and industrial forces. Issue C9 also includes a set of corroded tape photographs (BATMAN!) and the penultimate text from the Tape Chapters, tracing a lineage from reading A Clockwork Orange as a teenager through to working with the extraordinary Anthony Burgess cassette archive. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 9 made public: 23 November 2022. Issues 1-8 are below. There will only be 10 issues of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with plans underway for the last issue in collaboration with Andy Cowan's boutique tape label. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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(THE GHOST TAPES)
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Our eighth issue PEN NIB (THE GHOST TAPES) develops the Ghost Telegrams (Volume 1) project
from 2012 from Alan Dunn, Jeff Young and
Paul Simpson, that featured recordings by Ron Moody (
Fagin in Oliver!) and
Jennifer John. That project was commissioned by Paul Kelly, then Arts
Officer at Lancashire County Council, to introduce the world to the Clifton family of Lytham St Annes: Siberian explorer John Talbot, wife Violet and eccentric doomed heir, Harry.
Ten years on, we have been drawn into the Clifton world again, via out-of-the-blue emails from Tirol and Islay. The young Harry also inherited part of the
Kildalton estate on Islay,
where his father John Talbot is buried, and it is there that provides much of the magic, myth, aroma and texture of PEN NIB and to those deeply connected
to the island, we
are forever indebted: the Laird of
Kildalton,
Fiona, Iona, Sealy, Hannah, James and some ghosts; some animals.
The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 8 made public: 23 October 2022. On this day on Islay, the assemblages photographed for C8 will be laid at John Talbot's grave at 6.02am and removed at 6.02pm (The Laird explains: "October 23rd is National Mole day celebrating the Avogadro number 6.02x10 to the power of 23; the day commences at 6.02am and ends 6.02 pm"). Issue C8 contains many items, including original Islay cassette recordings, pills etched with MOOD(Y), sawn off antler tips as a nod to Bill Drummond on the neighbouring Jura, new readings from The Accidental Laird, deer dung pellets, tea cards, grey tapes housed in tiny black gloves dipped in Islay 50-year-old Liquid Gold Single Cask Malt Whisky, Echoes booklets, homages to John Stezaker, cobwebbed postcards, Violet post-it notes, polished (ears of) Edward VII pennies, cigarette tin assemblages, 78rpm record sleeves, peacock feathers, golden daisies and more. Click here for MP3 of Ghost Telegrams (Volume 1), here for Alexandra O'Toole's website and here for Tina Dempsey's audio from the Echoes project.
Issues 1-7 are below. There will only be 10 issues of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot with O&D and Andy Cowan's boutique tape label. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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Our seventh issue Click here for the original 2014 project and start the journey across (mostly still active) webpages. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 7 made public: 23 September 2022.
Issues 1-6 are below. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot with The Clifton ghosts and animals, VOISE and Andy Cowan's boutique tape label. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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Our sixth issue has been compiled with Lucy Rogers and Joe Christman, students in Leeds and Huddersfield whose work explores slow processes and the quirks of obsolete technology. The issue really focuses on the handmade. It features a cassette tape crochet bag and unique piece of audio housed within a modified loop cassette and hand-painted sleeve; the loop itself requires interaction in order for it to play properly, offering opportunities to manipulate the sound further. Each element has been carefully handmade, down to the last stitch, making each copy of this issue entirely unique, also including a postcard, a journal entry documenting the creation of the issue and a snapshot of the home it was created in and Chapter 6 of my Cassette Tales, covering 1991-99 before the Internet arrives fully ...
Thanks again to tapeline for their brilliant service. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 6 made public: 24 August 2022.
Issues 1-5 are below. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot with Aidan's dub, The Clifton ghosts and animals and Andy Cowan's boutique tape label. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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Our fifth issue has been compiled with mage tears.
mage tears is Nicole Johnson, about to enter her final year in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. This issue has been compiled as an assembly of mage tears sounds and images, including two exclusive new tracks on the pale pink tape, a soundtrack to my life and ghosts of you (with loveable wholes), screenprinted tote bags, pressed flowers, typed poetry and badges. It also comes with an envelope of further (art school) tape memories from myself, complete with origami rabbit and a buried photograph of The Fall tape involved in the near-miss. Thanks as always to Louise and Meg at tapeline for their brilliant service, mum for the origami and Claire C for screenprinting support. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 5 made public: 1 August 2022. MP3s of a soundtrack to my life, ghosts of you (with loveable wholes) and
Issues 1-4 are at the bottom of this page. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot with Lucy + Joe, Aidan's dub, The Clifton ghosts and animals and John O'Shea meets Samuel Beckett. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
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Our fourth issue has been compiled with Katie Strang.
Katie is a palaeontologist specialising in early Carboniferous sharks and building materials analyst for the Scottish Lime Centre Trust. Earlier this year, she toured Michael Portillo around Arthur's Seat and more recently she ran for election in West Fife & Coastal Villages. She is also my cousin and we catch up at my dad's funeral and chat about cassettes; she tells me this great story of taking a tape to an Offspring gig and the band end up smashing it. This gets us started and of her amazing issue, she adds: "it’s about science and punk that has always addressed big issues like climate change, how a lot of punk musicians, including Dexter, have PhDs and basically how humans are destroying everything we touch." The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue 4 made public: 23 June 2022.
Issues 1, 2 and 3 are at the bottom of this page. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot with mage tears, Lucy + Joe, Aidan's dub, The Clifton ghosts and John O'Shea meets Samuel Beckett. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
Each issue C4 (PINT BAIRN, BITTE) includes an Offspring cassette with crinoids* carefully inserted, an x-ray from a punk gig incident, copies of maps that have been kept in dried coal for a month and then buried, old cassette sleeves (also buried) and stickers from the always brilliant News From Nowhere Radical Bookshop in Liverpool. *Crinoids are an ancient fossil group that first appeared in the seas of the mid Cambrian, about 300 million years before dinosaurs. With thanks to Tom, Rick and mum for the crinoid solution.
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Our third issue has been compiled with Dave Henderson.
In May 1983 Dave Henderson publishes Wild Planet, a A-Z of difficult music in Sounds. I am 15 at the time of the first article and desperately craving new music - unheard music, underground music, obscure non-commercial music - and back then, that means tapes. The Wild Planet writings seduce me to send off for tiny-worded badly-photocopied sheets of obscure tapes. I scour these concise (pre-Twitter) often over-reaching poetic descriptions, make a choice and send off a Postal Order and SAE. I keep a few of the sheets - BBP Records and Tapes, Rebellious Nature Cassettes, Music For MXXXXXs, David 14, Years On Earth Tapes etc. There are bootlegs too, from The Fall (Chaos Tapes), Joy Division and the whole ROIR collection, New York’s cassette-only label launched in 1981 and extraordinary releases by New York Dolls, Einstürzende Neubauten, Suicide, Yellowman, Bad Brains and Nico. Today we are thinking about re-wilding our planet in other respects. Wild is the untamed, uncentralised, unvanillacised. Perhaps we have lost (the need to) anticipate – except for live events - and with it, a little bit of the need to imagine stuff before we swallow it all up and move on feverishly to the next bite... The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064.Issue 3 made public: 23 May 2022.
Issues 1 and 2 are at the bottom of this page. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans afoot (including smashed Offspring tapes and maybe some rocks). Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
Issue C3 (BRAIN TAB) includes: A6 card sleeve Coloured C60 cassette with original Wild Planet bands, including Throbbing Gristle, 400 Blows, Portion Control, Smersh, Muslimgauze and Coil. Various A6 artefacts, cuttings, copies, zines, playing cards and stickers Colour photographs from early days of cassette collecting With thanks to Ricky Adam (photography).
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Our second issue has been compiled with Michael Ridge as further celebration of cassette projects, objects,
quirks and sounds. First noticing the consistency of Michael's works on Instagram, it is clear that sensibilities overlap. Based down in Norwich,
he carefully (scientifically?) unscrews, freezes, crushes and re/builds tapes that often contain the very sounds or objects that create the sounds captured on the every tapes, often loops, that are ... you get the idea; the whole practice feels like a joyous home-made compilation with Robert Morris' Box with the Sound of Its Own Making (1961) on Side A whilst Henri Van Herwegen (Panamarenko) dismantles Side B in his workshop.
For Issue 2 (entitled TIP-TAP), Michael has looped, bowed, mapped and, without wanting to give too much away, let's say ... exhumed for/on tape. The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue made public: 23 April 2022.
A reminder of Issue 1 is at the bottom of this page. There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with further exciting plans (including Wild Planet compilations, smashed Offspring tapes and maybe some rocks) in development with Dave Henderson and Katie Strang. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
Issue C2 (TIP-TAP) includes: A6 card sleeve See through C90 cassette shell with loop of composition made by playing bow along mic'd up willow twig (also enclosed), held inside vacuum formed casing Bottle with fragment of ______ _____/____ found near Norwich Cathedral with small loop of field recording made at location A6 email sheet (buried for two February days) with map of above location Photographs of Michael's working set-up Silver prints of Michael's project plans A6 zine with images from Michael's previous works with text on my early days of cassette collecting (eg tape libraries) 35mm slide with digital printed image of willow twig cassette, housed in black envelope Colour photographs from early days of cassette collecting With thanks to Tom Rodgers, Trish Hewitt, Dan and Dan and all the 3D Workshop team at Leeds Beckett University, Ricky Adam (photography).
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Why not? Following on from our ZERO PLAN exercise (adventure), we celebrate cassette projects in all their magnetic glory, beginning with
PRODUCTION LINE by Static,
Sam Wiehl and Clinic that was covered as TAPE
BRITAIN ... (it's not meant to make sense, yet, just be patient with us).
The zine with 10 names is cantaudio064. Issue made public: 23 March 2022.
There will only be 10 issues (naturally) of The zine with 10 names and only 20 copies of each with no digital version. Each issue will feature a guest collaborator, with exciting plans (including vacuum forming, twig loops, bottled bones, Wild Planet compilations, smashed Offspring tapes and maybe some rocks) in development with Michael Ridge, Dave Henderson and Katie Strang. Ten copies of each issue for sale, email for details.
A6 card sleeve C10 engraved grey cassette with excerpts from TAPE BRITAIN, PRODUCTION LINE and a chat about the project in Static A6 email sheet Tracing paper prints of very early PRODUCTION LINE schematics and plans DIY wooden cassette case with instructions and cut-out ‘1’ Shrunken cassette inlay with images from lengthways splicing Black envelope with lengthways tape fragment and TAPE BRITAIN patch Colour photographs from TAPE BRITAIN A2 graphic history of the projects With thanks to Paul, Sam, Tom Rodgers, Trish Hewitt, Dan and Dan and all the 3D Workshop team at Leeds Beckett University, Ricky Adam (photography).
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