My #CassetteTape Top 10
In Issue 15 of The Goo (Aug-Sept 2023) I reviewed High Bias - The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape by Marc Masters (University of North Carolina Press). I abandoned the format decades ago but as I read High Bias I returned to the few tapes I’ve kept stored in my attic. My review in The Goo was accompanied by my #CassetteTape Top 5, below I count down a Top 10.
No. 10
Dora Suarez
Derek Raymond, James Johnston and Terry Edwards
Clawfist Records, 1993
I bought this cassette in 1993 because of my love of Londoners Gallon Drunk - I'm sure I'm not alone in being introduced to the writing of English crime novelist Derek Raymond via this treasure. Dora Suarez was released by Clawfist Records in 1993, the same year as Gallon Drunk's opus In the Heart of Town. Dora Suarez is a recording of Raymond reading extracts from his 1990 novel I Was Dora Suarez soundtracked by Gallon Drunk's James Johnston and Terry Edwards. It's possibly the most unsettling record I've ever heard.
Robin Cook was better known by his pen name, Derek Raymond, and I Was Dora Suarez (1990) is the fourth novel in his Factory series. It's an extremely shocking read, as the novel opens a serial killer brutally murders a prostitute, Dora Suarez. We then follow the detective as he obsesses over the young woman whose murder he investigates.
Raymond has been described as the father of British Noir, but according to author A. L. Kennedy: "He's far beyond noir. There probably isn't even a word for his kind of darkness."
The soundtrack produced by Johnston (guitar, organ, piano, percussion) and Edwards (saxophone, organ, piano percussion) is full of, "Haunting melodies, sound effects and menacing soundscapes which underpin Raymond’s unlikely Etonian accent."
Their industrial drones are dense, dark, and incredibly eerie. The album clocks in at over an hour and is a really intense, claustrophobic listen - which is certainly not for the faint-hearted.
No. 9
The Smiths
The Peel Session
Dutch East India Trading, 1991
A tape of The Smiths' first Peel Session from 1983. Originally released by Strange Fruit on 12" in 1988, this tape was released in the US in 1991. Three of the four tracks were also on Hatful of Hollow. This tape was purchased in a record shop in Cambridge, MA in 1992.
No. 8
The Teardrop Explodes
Everybody Wants to Shag…
Fontana/Phonogram, 1991
The first Teardrops album I bought. The lost third album. Teardrops were down to Cope, Dwyer and Balfe. Cope details the album’s recording in his essential biography Head-On. Balfe and producer Hugh Jones worked in Rockfield while Dwyer drove Kingsley Ward’s (Rockfield’s owner) Cortina estate around the Monmouth countryside with Cope on the roof.
While Jones and Balfe worked away for Dwyer and Cope, it was “another evening of endless drugs and videos”. They got through a half ounce of hash a day. The album was shelved, and the band split in November 1982. The recordings were eventually released in 1990 and were given the name that had been originally intended for the debut album. It’s got some of my favourite Teardrops' songs on it. Cope is one of the very few artists I’ve stayed the course with. It can be a frustrating ride, but the highs definitely surpass the lows. His recent 'Cope’s Notes' series has been incredible. Beautifully designed A5 booklets with cover-mounted CDs looking back at specific albums in his career.
No. 7
Sonic Youth
Dirty Boots
Cassette Single, DGC Records, 1992
An edited version of ‘Dirty Boots’ and five live tracks taken from a 1990 Irvine California show. The third single from Goo. The live tracks feature SY at the height of their powers. The whole gig was released in 2019 as Live in Irvine 1990.
No. 6
Big Black
Atomizer
Touch & Go, 1992
Atomizer came out in 1986, but I heard it for the first time in the early 90s. This reissue on Touch & Go is from 1992 and was purchased in Newbury Comics in Boston.
”I was born in this town
Live here my whole life
Probably come to die in this town
Live here my whole life”
’Kerosene’ is still incendiary
No. 5
Ghosting
Reimagining Miyazaki
Wondercore Island, 2017
The most recent tape in this list is an instrumental mixtape from Melbourne producer Andrei Eremin under his Ghosting alias. Eremin samples Joe Hisaishi’s minimalist soundtracks to the films of Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki. It’s mesmerising, the tape’s long sold out but the music can be purchased digitally from Bandcamp.
No. 4
Various Artists
The Peel Sessions - The Sampler
Off the Track Records, 1988
An incredible compilation of session tracks recorded for John Peel’s BBC radio show. This French compilation is from 1988. Highlights include New Order, The Fall and Young Marble Giants.
No. 3
Microdisney
Live
Virgin Records, 1997
This live tape came free with the ‘Town to Town’ 7” single. Could the rest of the gig be in the Virgin Records vaults?
From a time when labels released different formats to encourage fans to multi-buy in an attempt to hit the charts. Four weeks after its release, ‘Town to Town’ reached No. 55 in the UK Charts, the following week it had dropped to No. 70.
Sometime later, legendary record producer Mickie Most approached Sean O’Hagan and asked him to autograph his copy of the single telling him that it was one of the greatest pop singles of the last 15 years. He said he couldn’t understand how it wasn’t mega. He was spot on!
No. 2
Various Artists
This Are Two Tone
Two-Tone Records/Chrysalis, 1983
Reissued in 2020 on expensive vinyl for Record Store Day, my tape was bought in a charity shop on Camden Street over 20 years ago for 50p.
16 tracks from the famed Ska label: The Specials, The Selector, The Beat, Madness and Rhoda Dakar’s still astonishing ‘The Boiler’.
No. 1
Various Artists
Another Spark
Another Spark Tapes, 1984
A 27 track compilation released on Another Spark Tapes in 1984. The tape was accompanied by a 32 page A5 booklet.
It’s an incredible snapshot of independent music in the UK in the early to mid-80s. All 32 pages of the booklet can be viewed here.
Tapes just outside my #CassetteTape Top 10
