♫♪  Headboggle / Collin McKelvey - Split

Though it never died in the first place, the recent “revival” of the cassette tape in our collective (un)consciousness owes much to the efforts of Mike Haley A.K.A. Wether — co-host of the Tabs Out podcast, and founder of 905 Tapes. You may have scoped the Tabs Out posse’s columns on AdHocFM (Who Has Tapes Anymore?) and this very site (Laser Focus), and then confused relatives over brunch with requests to unearth the ancient tape deck from the crawlspace (“Remember now, there’s no ‘shuffle’ feature on this one.” *wink* *grimace*). 905’s catalog reads like a Who’s Who of Champion Zoners, encompassing everyone from Mick Barr to Derek Rogers, Quicksails to Merzbow, M. Geddes Gengras to Helm (damn [Editor’s note: DAMN]). The label’s new batch, decked out with Sailor Jerry-core classic tattoo J-cards, continues to deliver the goods.

If anyone is exploiting the experimental underground’s cassette proclivity to the fullest, Headboggle (born Derek Gedalecia) is that human being. The restless multi-multi-instrumentalist’s third physical release with 905 finds him conjuring synth-noise chaos from his arsenal of modular, analog, and homemade electronics. Sir Boggle’s ecstatic, randomized bleeps and confounding “song” structures, conveyed to our brains by his hi-fidelity recording practices, beg comparisons to electronic music forefathers like Morton Subotnick while sounding unlike pretty much anything released in this decade / century. Flip over the tape for thirty minutes of eclectic improv from solo synth wizard Collin McKelvey. His live session cycles through enough mutant tones, churning rhythmic passages, and squalls of ‘verb-drenched noise to keep true heads engaged for its whole mind-expanding duration.

The new batch of 905 Tapes is available now.

• Head Boggle: http://headboggle.tumblr.com/
• Collin McKelvey: http://slaughteringdolphins.blogspot.com/
• 905 Tapes: http://www.905tapes.com/

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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