Weird Tapes - Christian DRUGS is where it's at

Cut from Weird Tapes "WEIRD RADIO" DJ set - an unknown track mixed into a few others with a great spliced-up punchline. ^_^

Recollections of Memory Tapes - Fallout

Via: Carpark Records writeup:

With the foundation of his musical life crumbling, Dayve Hawk was struggling to maintain a relationship with his project Memory Tapes. But through the difficulties, Hawk managed to keep this vital outlet going. Fallout / House On Fire, the new two-song digital single from Memory Tapes, exhibits Hawk’s still strong songwriting talents and an alternative way of working. After the artist’s last LP, Grace/Confusion, he saw several professional and personal relationships end, all in the space of a few months.

At this point, most of the structure built around the band since the first record,Seek Magic, had disintegrated.  The title of “Fallout” seems to suggest Memory Tapes’ situation around this time. The song itself sounds like an early meeting between post-punk and synth-pop, before anyone could polish out the feeling. The somewhat downcast mood of the music is reflected in the vocals, with Hawk singing, “all I want/ to be there, too.”

[...]

The tracks are completely live/hardware based, with no computer manipulation on the vocals. Considering the raw capture of these songs, they feel a little more like intimate demos than part of a traditional single. “I feel like it’s important to just do something and get it out,” Hawk says. “I’m trying to transition out of my hyper-introverted life.” 

I met Dayve once after a small gig he played in Toronto some years ago. After the concert, he awkwardly scrawled his name (using a ballpoint pen) cock-eyed across my Seek Magic LP, and got away from fans as fast as possible. I felt badly for him that he couldn't enjoy the adoration from people who've enjoyed his work so much over the years. His performance live was fantastic, but you could certainly see it was a struggle for him to reconcile being a musician in public with the introverted nature of his life. 

It's that intersection of introspection and the past that grants his music such a unique sound. Like his earlier side projects, Memory Tapes continues to trigger an emotional resonance for me with music keyed to specific times in my early childhood. In the case of "Fallout", it's the curious feeling I had on evenings spent alone in the early 90's, with half-heard music playing on a car radio outside. It also captures the odd wonder I felt while watching a taped copy of "E.T" in an empty house; the flicker of VHS scan lines on my family's old UHF-band television with a soft summer night breeze blowing though a window. Distant smells of a barbecue, and the sound of crickets outside: These are simple, but potent memories of a time that no longer exists - but I can relive them in a way though music.


I hadn't thought about these experiences for years, but Dayve Hawk's music brings them to the forefront of my memory. For that, I'm eternally grateful and hope he continues to make music in any form for years to come.

 

Update: Dayve released what sounds like a demo version of "Fallout" along with a few other new/unleased tracks in April:



I've done a quick cut/edit of the 1st track:

Memory Tapes - Blue to Green Mix

A reoccurring favourite artist of mine who goes by Memory Tapes (and occasionally Weird Tapes) released another eclectic mix set:

https://soundcloud.com/memorytapes/blue-to-green-mix
When I met the artist during a small concert in Toronto, he commented that nothing on the internet is permanent. It exists, then is gone. For that reason, he rarely keeps his mixes posted for very long.

If you like this, or any of his other listed mixes via SoundCloud, be sure to save them offline using a any number of websites.

Memory Tapes - September

Nostalga

An short film titled "Nostalga" was posted on VIMEO recently that explores the different tangible expressions /representations of longing for the past.

It's interesting to note that even the visual presentation and editing emulates a VHS cassette - a piece of technology that simply isn't used any longer, but evokes deep feelings in those who wistfully remember them.

NOSTALGIES from PARACHUTES.TV on Vimeo.

During the video a word is mentioned, but without description: Saudade.

Saudade is a fascinating term, as it described an emotional state I've felt, but never had a word for until recently. "Nostalga", "Longing", or "wistful remembrance"  come close, but are still lacking. Saudade describes a deep emotional state of longing for something or someone that is absent - either in present or the past. This also applies to the sadness of future loss where the object of affection is present now but will be gone later.

A key difference between nostalga and saudade-seeped remembrance is the realization that the object(s) of your affection may never have existed in the way you remember them. It isn't simply the absence of a toy from your childhood, or a specific album you had long ago - it's the sadness that comes from realizing that you can never recapture the same set of circumstances and perception you once had. 

I've experienced this frequently as I listen to music and television - certain chords or sound  sets remind me of childhood listening experiences. However, I know those experiences are like dreams: think about them for too long, and they disappear like morning dew. All we're left with are the tangible pop culture detritus that triggered these feelings. 

The first time I encountered the term "Saudade" was in the comments section of an article which described a "lost cultural decade": what we view as "80s" or "retro" today. The article shouldn't be read literally (i.e: there's a 10 year span people stopped counting sometime between 1979 and 1992 called the "19A0s"). Instead, the article describes in a very strange way how the expression of nostalgic longing take on particular forms during this era. These expressions (triangles, particular patterns, imagery, colors, etc.) are sampled, recycled, and made new and familiar by writers, artists, and designers in their constant callbacks and pastiche. For current music and visual aesthetics, the 'warmth' of analogue technology (photos, video & music) is often cited as more attractive than the bleak stillness of our present digital environment. 

For individuals born in the 1980s, we experienced the cultural output of that decade in aftermath: reruns, rebroadcasts, and taped VHS recording showed us a window into a world we wanted to be apart of, but never really could.




As one commenter articulated, this caused "nostalgia for something that you never really knew [...] like something on the top of your tongue that you can't fully realize, and makes you sad."

"I always had the sense that there was a giant party going on without me.  It didn’t help to see A-ha cavorting about on MTV in a comic book world where I desperately hoped to join them, and knew I never could; Jem made me hunger for a brave new holographic world I knew didn’t exist, no matter how hard I wished it did.  Even today, I harbor some regret that my life doesn’t look like a John Foxx video [... It was an era spent] trying to catch the phantoms of a pop culture that both he and I were too young to understand yet still desperately wanted to internalize[.]"

For the consumer culture of the 1980s, I experienced a heavy dose of this feeling when watching television in the late 1980s, and early 1990s. Before the connectivity of the internet, North America had a shared multi-channel television culture. With limited viewing options, it had a one-sided homogenizing effect on those watching it. We passively watched and internalized what we were shown without response. The repetitive nature of the analogue edited sound and visuals of pre-internet cable TV was reassuring and comfortable to many.



SMASHTV's Video mix sets are a supercut of '80s/'90s commercials set over top of similar music. The repetitive expressions of VHF-broadcast culture: station idents, clumsy advertisements, and cartoons carry heavily nostalgic cache. They were all sandwedged between television's assurance that they'd be back after "these messages". Decades later, I believe those "messages" aren't the ones they intended. The products and shows advertised are long gone - but the feelings they communicated remain.

For earlier decades, modern music like Belbury Poly on the label "GhostBox" mimics "the electronic avant garde of the 60's-80's period to generate a sense of disquieting nostalgia." BoingBoing.net is an avid fan of framing this style of music as haunting tunes from a "parallel world". The description is appropriate: Much of this music sounds like it comes from a hazy, half-remembered memory that occurred between 1970 and 1992 - an era I've heard  wistfully called "The Long Eighties".







All of this nostalgia comes with a flip-side:  Do we spend our years revelling in what was, rather than what will be?

An interesting post on 'The Golden Age syndrome' is worth reading. It looks at the wider implications of (western) culture and it's reliance on recycled pastiche of it's own past. The author rightly asks "What other generation spent its youth, money, energy, and talents denying its own time?"

I feel that our nostalgic longings for representations of the past come from a similarity of expression: our own memories have no clean edges. The way we store experiences and emotion are imperfect, and subject to unanticipated change over time.  To those who grew up with the warmth of CRT-tube static, the still sharpness of a high-definition television's blue screen unintentionally alienates us.

Time will tell if musical and aesthetic interests of future generations will continue to look back and reinterpret memories of our analogue past - or embrace the singularity-like world to be.

For more saudade-inducing content, I'd suggest:

A discussion on the original term @ NPR:
Saudade: An Untranslatable, Undeniably Potent Word

Imagery:

http://ffffound.com/
http://vhsdreamz.tumblr.com/archive

Music:
http://arawa.fm/

http://weirdtapes.blogspot.com/

Maserati - Psych Post Rock

Given my interest in artists identified as psychedelic rock like Weird / Memory tapes:

 

- it makes sense I'd enjoy Maserati:





More information here on the group's website. There's a scattering of tracks available on their label's Soundcloud, but a better selection can be found on Youtube.

Displaced mix by Memory Tapes [update]

[Update:] This is odd - the original mix, titled "Displaced Mix" was removed by Memory Tapes, and replaced with a similar mix, same artwork, but titled 'Replacement Mix'. No idea why, but it's equally good, if not better:

[Update 2:] Got a reply from the artist, and he removed the original 'Displaced Mix' because one of his remixes was of another artists work whose album was still unreleased. All the same, I wish I'd had the foresight to save that mix. It worked really well together.

Still, 'Replaced mix' is a nice combination of of rarities, B-sides, remixes, and unreleased tracks by Memory Tapes. Check out his music blog that has a surprising amount of free music.

Memory Tapes: Walk Me Home 1 & 2

Thanks to the magic of Soundcloud's notification system, I received word today of a new mixed set by Dayve Hawk of Memory Tapes. One of the first artists I actively followed online (from his time with Hail Social, to Weird / Memory Tapes) - he consistently creates excellent music. The Walk Me Home mixes in particular have a vintage, spooky vibe to them.

Walk Me Home 2 by Memory Tapes

Also,  Memory Tapes "Walk Me Home" mix [free download link], was created originally for the excellent ARAWA.fm back in 2009.

http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/13506-walk-me-home/

DJ Blayne Mixtape: Memory (2012)

Memory Mix (2012) by thisstuffiswonderful

DJ Blayne's : Memory 2012 (Mix Tape):
A mix of chillwave, electro-ambient, and electro-synthpop I find emotionally evocative.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD (Free MP3)

1. Aslan Osiris - When Our Moon Falls vs. Tycho - Ascension [DJ B Edit]
2. Apparat - Arcadia (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix)
3. Telefon Tel Aviv - The Birds [DJ B Edit]
4. M83 - I Guess I'm Floating
5. Kevin Shields - Goodbye (Lost In Translation OST)
6. Cool Angels - Don't Feel Like Holding On (Ft. Stef Hodapp) [DJ B edit]
7. Memory Tapes - Run Out
8. Telefon Tel Aviv - Helen of Troy
9. Gypsy & the Cat - Time to Wander (Joan of Arc Remix)
10. DIIV - Follow (Memory Tapes Remix)
11. Eight and a Half - When I was Twenty Nine
12. M83 - Slight Night Shiver
13. Tycho - A Walk

Mix also streaming on Mixcloud:

DJ Blayne - Memory 2012 Mix Tape by Djblayne on Mixcloud

If you like the artists included in this set, buy their music. Some tracks are already available for free (Soundcloud) or for purchase (via Bandcamp). Mixtape created using Adobe Soundbooth and Premier.

-DJ Blayne 
[ blaynescott@gmail.com ]
http://events.dark-ware.org

Chillwave: Weird Tapes

The only music artist online that I'll consistently check for newly posted tracks is "Weird Tapes", and the his side project, "Memory Cassette".

As one blogger put it:

Feel like I might call it 'chill wave' music in the future. Feels like 'chill wave' is dominated by 'thick/chill synths' while conceptual core is still trying to 'use real instruments/sound like it was recorded in nature.' Feel like chillwave is supposed to sound like something that was playing in the background of 'an old VHS cassette that u found in ur attic from the late 80s/early 90s.'

Is it possible to be nostalgic for memories that aren't your own? This occurred to me while listening to music associated with 'chillwave' artists like Memory Tapes recently.

Something about this artist (and perhaps the genre) strikes a chord in me. Listening to any tracks reminds me of memories I never had - a feeling that I've combined childhood perception with actual memories I had as a kid watching TV, or wandering around outside.

Listening to Weird Tapes/Memory Cassette/Memory Tapes as an adult bring about an intersection between the events of my childhood, and the mood/feelings I had during specific moments. It's hard to put into words, but I think that's why this music is such magic.

Also check out Weird Tapes earlier band, "Hail Social" - far more alt. rock, but you can see the beginnings of his style in many tracks.

http://weirdtapes.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/hailsocial

Be sure to dig through the Weird Tapes blog archive. 80% of his music is free to download, with the exception of some full EPs, which are available through iTunes, etc.

A good place to start is with a mixtape of his called "Walk me home". It's a combination of a few of his tracks, an expertly mixed .mp3 of your memories. :)

Update: I came across an interesting interview with the artist (Dayve Hawk) at Sterogum.

Chillwave: In Video

For other interesting examples of (what can loosely be defined as) Chillwave, visit the Videopage of Jamie Harley.

I discovered his (her?) work while browsing VIMO from an edited video they did mixed to a Weird Tapes track recently.

(S?)he's like the ideal art director of your imagined memories: using found footage/retro documentaries/arthouse footage combined with dreamy/chilled out songs by various artists I've never heard of - they craft something amazing.

Memoryhouse - Lately (Deuxième) from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.



Twin Shadow - "Castles In The Snow" from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.



Memory Tapes : "Today Is Our Life" from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.