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@recordfamous
"I was lonely in New York, sure, and saddened by the garish commercialism, but anxiety was not the screaming totality of the condition." http://ift.tt/19mizI0

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Dustin is a writer-cartoonist living in Portland plainly tired of nickel and diming. He asks that you consider the plain economics of independent music and support artists fairly. He also happens to be available for freelance work.
3 Cassettes, Of 2014
This isn’t a best of, but there was plenty of good music last year that you’d never heard of. Why? Because the economies of large scale music and agriculture farming just don’t deem it worthwhile.
Excerpts from Black Women Matter
Yvette Smith, Mother of 2, died February 16, 2014 in Bastrop, Texas
Bastrop County Deputy Daniel Willis arrived at Yvette’s home for a reported domestic disturbance alleging that two males were arguing in the presence of a gun. Yvette opened the door. Willis opened fire and murdered Yvette. Police initially claimed that she had a gun and then retracted the statement.
Absurdist features a zine produced by Underground Sketchbook, dedicated to the stories of 11 black women who have been killed by law enforcement.
The Absurdist is a new collection of writings on everything and nothing.
Every week, we deliver a few essays, interviews plus reviews on the profound & pointless, a peek into the psychologies & philosophies of new & odd creatives.
You’ll find a bit of everything here; tapes, photo, culture, food, film… The way we figure it, we’re not trying to be anything, to anyone, so we can’t possibly fail, right?
Mostly though, we just want you the reader & the writer, to have fun with The Absurdist. As designers, shouldn’t we be making things for people unlike ourselves, for real people, for you?
To Tape Famous readers, we're still doing reviews, just with a whole lot more, people & arts. This blog will still have the archive but new Absurdist content will be cross posted here.
To explain more I’ve compiled this curious manifest ahead of our launch.
Essay submissions & internships are paid. We aren’t into unpaid work, so to be very clear we support micro-patronage and even smaller exposure.
We’ll never post a listicle. With the exception of this list, which is really more of a manifesto, you simply won’t see one here.
You won’t read about anyone famous. We’re about the folks you haven’t heard of, but should. We just aren’t fanboys of big hitters. Verified folk with 150k followers don’t need us.
We don’t recycle content. You can read everything elsewhere, in 50 shades of click-bait, on your favorite non-issues, but just not here. This is all original.
We aren’t technology centric. You won’t find lifehacks, startup coaching or the latest anything here. We’re about this little thing called IRL, OMG.
Where does The Absurdist come from?
We originally began as a cassette blog that could, called Tape Famous. We focused on quality & quirk over all else. The first review I wrote in March 2013, did however make some 2014 year end best of lists, so.
But the feed trough of the internet can be a cruel and bewildering place, so we took the lessons learned plus our followers and restarted.
We wanted to give a voice to a whole new set of creatives, folks who you’ve never heard off but likely should, sooner rather than later. We also wanted to make things diverse, random & even, a little radical.
Who is The Absurdist?
Well, there’s me, Vikram, along with Ethan & Nina. We’re all product design people on the fringe of tech culture who are trying desperately to stave off boredom & a creative coma in Silicon Valley.
Beyond that, we’re digging into our contacts and recruiting a broad range of editors and contributors from around the country. Folks and freaks of all walks, colors, genders & orientations of life.
Also joining us will be Christian Filardo, Luke Bartlett, Dustin Krcatovich, Bryan Kelly, Stefanie Stauffer & more…
Pitch Us
Have a passion, obsessed with something? Pitch us your story, the odder the better. Want to get more involved, even better!
Sincerely, Yung Rama & The Absurdist Crew
A new Moon in Aries and the vedic astral New Year, ripples of deep transformation are seeded for Spring. Strings for Spring in Fuzz Major, is a 30 minute tribute to some heavy jammers on the decks.

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When Tape Famous launched almost two years ago, I was still a bright eyed transplant to California. Cut off from a music scene & moving on from a relationship with a musician, I decided to put my efforts into something creative. From reminiscing with longtime friends, it seems that Tape Famous was born sometime in March 2013 in LA, my French bff loved the idea, my ex was less than impressed by the grandeur.
I'm reposting that first review from March 27, 2013 in it's naive entirety, as it was Morgan Delt's tape that captured my imagination for what a new music publication could be. I was looking to curate the anti pitchfork, entirely unacademic, a hard line to basement shows.
This album has been rolling around in my head since its arrival in January. This Inflatable Tapes release brings Krautrock and Psychedelic Pop together in a jazzy way. While its definitely Californian in it’s essence, I can’t help hearing some Pharoah Sanders cacophony on listens.
<a href=”http://morgandelt.bandcamp.com/album/psychic-death-hole” data-mce-href=”http://morgandelt.bandcamp.com/album/psychic-death-hole”>Psychic Death Hole by Morgan Delt</a>
I remember listening to “Barbarian Kings” at work and wondering if I was in Istanbul in the 70s, easily my favorite track on the album. RIYL Krautrock / Free Jazz / Turkish Psychedlic
A whole 8 months later, Impose Magazine & Pitchfork caught on to that album. Thanks for the birthday gift but you're way too late to the party. Coincidentally both reviews were published on my birthday, January 27th. It's now been a whole 20 months since that first post & about 250 tape reviews. Tape Famous was received really well & exist thanks to your support, both listeners & makers.
But a few things have changed since that first tape, Morgan Delt is now a regular bill on psychedelic circuit, we have an International Cassette Store day, tape jockeying is a thing & the number of tape labels have swelled.
Yet even with all the noise, the Goliath of fast culture & consumerism means that Tape Famous has grown as big as it will ever be. Spotify is a buffet I refuse to indulge in & Tumblr is a feed pit I refuse to feed. The only thing that mattered were the letters & carefully packed tapes in the mail. The correspondence & community of it. Facebook's improved algorithms & the drop in readership signaled the end of things for me.
It led to early experiments in new directions, radio & tape jockeying, late night mixtapes from my Oakland bedroom, asking, what next? I've also been very busy as a product design. It's clear to me that the happenstance that was Tape Famous has run it's course. I'd like to think that from the many tape reviews we've posted, sometimes inarticulate & drunken, that we've showed the music industry is still largely self congratulatory hyperbole & only independent artists matter. Indie, like so many other subcultures, was coopted sometime ago.
So what's next, and there is something next. Ethan, Christian, Luke, myself & other contributors are working on something bigger, more diverse. Something famous that embodies much of what tape culture still holds for me, a democratic medium for radical creatives. I hope you'll follow along, it'd be very neat to see you there. Also, to answer the question you're wondering, yes, there will always be a tape department.
Besos & Hasta Luego, Vikram & Tape Famous Family.
It’s been a hectic month round this old manor. Flavour for exploration seems to have withered away on the brooding back-foot of heartbreak, as mysterious patriotic tunnel vision has settled in its place. It's been the drug-hazed slurs of Panic Prevention Jamie T and quick-witted hot talk of Skinner round and round the stereo. Flirtations with old Kasabian material, even a brief spell entertaining the idea of enjoying Oasis. But it was all getting a bit too 'geezer off the block'. I missed the diversity, the melody. I missed the face-melting, teeth-grinding guitar fuzz of American garage bands, the sense that even they didn’t believe what they were singing about. There’s only so many three-chord, tight-knit tunes you can digest before it all gets a bit stuffy. I needed air. I needed to un-do the top button of my shirt, shed the ugly skins of selective listening and get loose again. And what better way? Fleeting Youth Records, another one of Austin’s finest, with their Blooming Fuzz-Fucked compilation. Thirty-three stand alone tracks each touching on the heavier side of brilliance, brought together through the wonders of the Reddit Cassette Culture community.
Blooming by The Void
Blooming by Weak Nerves
From gritty London punkers (Weak Nerves) to Philly based grungers (Mumblr) to southern Chile shoe-gazing pop fiends (Trementina). I know there are bands on here set to haunt my speakers for a very long time, and it's the excitement of new adventures, the pulsing desire for the re-broadening of musical palettes.
Blooming by Mumblr
Blooming by Trementina
Tape junkies be sure to grab a copy here - also available as a digital download. Luke Bartlett
Sad Horse's PURPLE ON PURPLE MAKES PURPLE just in the mail from Field Hymns Records out of Iowa City, Iowa. Fourteen tracks and just two of them are barely over two minutes long. Powerful little ditties though I might add. They might get you air drumming shirtless and in technically impressive ways, at least that's how I caught myself giving it a listen. Sad Horse is out of Portland and seems to not give two shits about wearing shirts as well.
Purple On Purple Makes Purple by Sad Horse
If you really dig it, check out their LP for just $10. Thanks for sharing, Dylan! -Ethan
Austin, Texas based GRAVEYARD ORBIT's 2014 winter compilation SECRET PEAKS was released in February of this year. It's limited run of 50 tapes is sold out, but that doesn't mean you can't stream it! It's littered with catchy tracks, with seductive female lead vocals abound. In the spirit of a compilation, that being to share out as much new indie music as possible, I leave you with more music, and less words. -Ethan
Secret Peaks // Winter Compilation 2014 by Yellerkin
Secret Peaks // Winter Compilation 2014 by GRAVEYARD ORBIT
Secret Peaks // Winter Compilation 2014 by Cathedrals
Secret Peaks // Winter Compilation 2014 by Tangerine
Justin Isham wasn't kidding at all when he said "Who Among Us" is the "perfect album to help drone out your day while shaking your booty nonstop". It's been shaking my ladies' booty, so there's a whole lotta truth to that. And it's definitely some of the best new music I've heard in a while. HUMONGOUS is the debut solo project of Isham's, who is the frontman of the California rock band Open Hand. Weave a playful and stuttering bass beat, on-the-spot lyrics from talented feature rapper "Class", and squealing guitars and you've got one of my favorite tracks on the album called "Classical Reality". You can't not move to this song.
WHO AMONG US? by HUMONGOUS
Isham nails all sorts of nuances and transitions that many indie dance bands can't quite master. Just listen to Citizen and you'll know what I mean. The title track mixes ghoulish Thom Yorke style whining with fluid rap and hazy, blazing guitar riffs. Overall, really impressed. I'm really going to have to give this tape to Vik so he can throw it in the tape DJ mix. Thanks for sharing Blacktop Records! -Ethan

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Targo’s work here filters past us with the gentlest of pushes. For me, it’s all we really want from this, SIMULACRA, to be grazed by the shoulder whilst passing through a crowd. It does that for me. For a brief span I’m exposed to a bottomless warmth, and then left. Sporadic and subtle melodies keep us enthused, simultaneously giving the old two fingers to any pre-judgmental, moronic cries of 'duh, ambient is all the same'.
SIMULACRA by Riot Meadows
In general, SIMULACRA flirts with colder industrial sounds, but never really secludes itself away within that bracket. It feels bogged down with the weight and stress of an everyday working structure, but repeats the process of breaking free the shackles and eluding to much dizzier, playful territory. Opener Warm Trees draws us in with the promises of a hallucinogenic stretch. Its snug, druggy, drawn out rhythm leading us comfortably into the much steadier Everywhere Asphalt. In its entirety, SIMULACRA makes us feel at ease, and I for one am ok with that. Sold out @ the late great Purr Tapes. LB
When Noumenal puts out a compilation & leads with Giant Claw, you simply must listen. What follows is a list of heavy hitters, Seth Graham, Former Selvers, Euglossine, Bastian Void... Caroline Says peeks in with gentle baroque, Jasper Lee with some tropicalla, Les Halles with French ethereal. Soulful sample stirring from Bonglestar, DJDBK & Ptrkmgrw. Funk along with Jimmy Turturici.
Compilation 1 by Noumenal Loom
The comp is quite extensive yet cohesive. Lovely for this Friday. Aloha from NASA Moffett Field, I landed here safely. Thanks for putting this out there for us mortals Noumenal Loom. Best part, name your own price, I'm dubbing this to cassette when I get home. xoxo Vikram
Begrudging and twee janglyness coming in hot from Earl Boykins of New Paltz, NY. This new tape “Everyone Loves Dogs" was released September 30, produced by Salvation Recording Co. and out on Forged Artifacts, a Minneapolis-based label.
Everybody Likes Dogs by Earl Boykins
Twee, eh? (On their Bandcamp) I guess they actually are sickeningly cute worrying about mom hitting her head in the dirt and loving puppies and all that. Also, they're trying to make their dads proud with this tape. Real family men. Men who are bitterly nostalgic for the bleachers and the schoolyard. You’d think they’ve gone soft, but if you check out this video of their new track “Hair” you might realize that it’s your eustachian tubes that might be truly soft, if thats even how ear anatomy works. This tape *shreds*, is best turned up loud, and give yourself some headspace to rock in. If you’re in New York, go find them, looks like they’ll be playing some shows in the "big city"" JANGLE! -Ethan
This is a review of Oceanic Triangulation, part II of Inner Islands recent release and a Former Selves - Panabrite split. This review is also an update on Tapefamous. Digest of Botanicals is an ambiently floating trek through primal forests into deep recesses of future consciousness. It moves briskly in places, appregiating synapses before settling into deeply meditative spreads. The synthesized wonder is layered and rich in tones, like a raga diaggregated with LSD. Triangulate Upon Paradise is oceanic, standing on sandy shores & looking out to the endless sea. Though it moves slow on the surface, there is an undulating pulse below and reminds me of Potions.
Oceanic Triangulation by Hakobune / Oliwa / Former Selves / Panabrite
I've been listening to this cassette with calm as I venture out into some new life directions. For starters, I started a job working on intelligent energy with a company on the NASA Ames campus. As you can imagine, futurism & metaphysics resonate strongly with me so it's fitting that tapes like these will be stimulating the minds of engineers of the futur. This also means that I'm moving, along with Tapefamous. Planning for such, we have new Bay area contributors, Ethan & Michaela. Two fun souls that dig tapes & fit the altruistic culture, in addition to Luke, Christian & myself. I've also had this idea simmering in my head to reimagine the music blog as something social & dynamic, so I'll be putting my head into building that. We're changing the mailing address though I'll still pickup posted submissions for Oct. Genres cover knee slappin punk, rock, folk & pop can be sent to Tape Famous, c/o Ethan, 288 3rd St. Unit 408 Oakland, CA, 94607. Tapes on the darker, broody, or psychedelic end can be sent to Tape Famous, c/o Michaela, 717 Panorama Drive, San Francisco, CA, 94131. Once I have a new address, you can send your ambient & dance hits to me. Vikram
Kurly Somthing HS2 IBP Like flippin channels, these cats from Seattle use many samples and give a try to playing songs from all over the genre map. Some bits feel like being a 17 year old bad kid sent to psych analysis, some like a soundtrack to surfin the internet, some like heavy poli sci discussions, and one even sounds a lil like the insistent rhymes of the Fresh Prince intro. Through it all is a good groove, scattered hardness, and beeps of life beyond the galaxy. Though shit gets serious sometimes, this band is having fun throughout the whole tape.
Head Space by Kurly Somthing
The cassette's sides are unmarked, but one side gives the feel of millennial rockers torn between outerspace party fantasies and the daily bummers of life on Earth; while the other side is a more focused foray into issues of our time through sampled speeches over a danceable beat. Here lies my favorite lyric, delivered by a voice I imagine belonging to a future being who blurs the line between having a soul and artificial intelligence: "Don't you think that being a human is a big joke?" The song is followed by a long segment of pot propaganda and debate – the perfect news radio ramble to smoke a bowl to – then this side finishes off with a sample of pure wisdom cut off just before the end of a sentence. Fill in the blank with your own wise message. The web says that Kurly Somthing does a wild live set with monsters and audience participation. No dates right now, but I'll go when they come around. -Michaela

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Way too much horse-bias to handle in these tracks. While I’m not even sure what that means, Nick Dolezal as Restaurnaut keeps coming back to the horse theme, producing casual, lo-fi horse tunes. With what seems like Wells Fargo-themed logos on the Bandcamp page, horses penetrate your skull in non-obvious ways.
FAHF2 by Restaurnaut
This particular tape “FAHF2” is a series of folky, uke slammin’, brut horse jams. “Don’t Feel Lonely Like The Rest” had me drumming fills on my leg, a definite good sign. It's reassuring as well, providing bits of advice on how to push through when you're falling apart. Dolezal’s business card reads: “One who very commonly eats out, and is recognized easily by waitstaff.” Maybe he's a restaurant astronaut? In conclusion, it’s all pretty weird. -Ethan
The recent weakening of the persistent cyclone a.k.a. the "North Polar Vortex" is probably why I am listening to this tape. Fern Records of Northern Illinois put out this compilation tape, with songs that the creator fell in love with while being chilled to the bone well into March 2014. I jived the most with a song called "God Made Television For A Reason" by the band formerly known as "Toast", a math rock band from Monroe, Louisiana that is now called Yowzah.
Inside the Wardian Case - A Fern Records Compilation by Toast
If the polar vortex comes back with a vengeance, I'd love to see another compilation, Fern Records! In the meantime, stay toasty, friends. -Ethan