We adore the fairly fresh and brilliant label gaining quite a reputation of Already Dead Tapes + Records.
Already Dead Tapes is run by Joshua Tabbia and Sean Hartman.
The roots of the label were established from musicians using non-traditional methods to craft sound as art.
As a niche tape & art label Already Dead places high regard on projects of an experimental nature.
These people help make this happen:
Ray Jackson (editorial)
Rob Skrzynski (video)
James Duke (video)
Pat and Travis met in college in 1999 and became friends over a shared interest in 1990’s Matador records. After several half-starts, they begun recording in 2009. “Baron Von Baron” is their first record. “Builded” is their second.
The duo provide Ambient/electronic/drone hailing from St. Louis. Focuses on studies of shifting and repeating patterns to create tension and texture. Sounds like Cronenbergian body-horror-core. A drum machine made of flesh.
“My garden, roommates, and belly agree, this is a good album. Ou Oú is a two piece ambient set with the grooves of a new psychedelic trip. The duo from St Louis is releasing their new album on Already Dead Tapes this year. The set is a tasty kaleidoscopic mix and an extraterrestrial wonder. For fans of texture and drone, you’ll find a sound with a french name, and a sci-fi cult movie feel in Ou Oú. It’s a beautiful mixture of crystalline song compositions, softly sprinkled with a minimalist structure that you can easily get wrapped up in.”
-Ray Jackson
Chicago-based, Cop Funeral recorded four parts of a piece titled “When the Heart Overflows the Mouth Speaks,” which kind of sounds like a distorted love story taking place in a submarine descending deeper and into truer, bluer shades of color. (Think of the cast from ‘Casablanca’ on the set for ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.’ Or the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a Dracula-version of Cpt. Jean Luc-Picard working together to build a romantic maritime roller-coaster in the Key West while dealing with heavy emotional setbacks.) This side is complete with shaky distorted harmonies, a pounding, reverberated synthesizer and great samples of things that sound like they’re from a harbor. Once again: magic on each track.”
-Ray Jackson
http://www.facebook.com/pages/William-Bowers/243718325653772
http://copfuneral.bandcamp.com/
AD032: Radiator Hospital / Fred Thomas – ‘Welcome To The Jungle’
Radiator Hospital is a lonely boy’s love letter to his record collection, channeling an obsession with pop music, old movies, comic books and junk food through a broken heart and a tape machine.
For listeners that recognize when the melancholy can become sweet, or when the heavy-hearts can find a peaceful release, I’d recommend this one. Radiator Hospital has a way of bringing smiles to those lonely ghosts in the past , while Fred Thomas has a way of bringing them all together, hand-in-hand. If you’re in what people call love, or even trying to be; pick up “Welcome to the Jungle” – Fred Thomas and Radiator Hospital will help you through many things.”
-Ray Jackson
http://friendswitheveryone.blogspot.com/
“There’s a lot I don’t know about Syracuse aside from it being probably big and having something to do with the Eerie Canal. Not that I’m saying my knowledge is flourishing or my experience with New England is something vast and well-cultured. All I’m saying is: the new sounds we got from Syracuse are sounding great.
“Humming Collection” from Wim, contains steady strums of guitars and short, sweet nautically themed pieces. Each song runs through the beauties of harmonized arpeggios, a resonating piano laid over vocalized chants, and instruments (perhaps) used as metaphors for the song’s intentions. It all brings the shades of blues and greens of every sea straight your ears. If your a fan of turning the lights low and laying back on the couch – pick this album up, asap.”
-Ray Jackson
AD034: Birds Of Passage – ‘I Was All You Are’ (co released with Cooper Cult)
birds of passage is the solo experimental music project of Alicia Merz.
“Starting with a slow wind and a whispering echo, Birds of Passage and I’ve Lost have put out a new mix. The dark, low, and soft collection from New Zealand and the US. The collaboration between the two musicians is uncanny and enriched with mystery. The sound is hypnotic and their chemistry is plainly magnetic.
Through a steady stride of breezy drones, the musicians perform slow soundscapes in an austere minimalistic feel. The songs whirl and sing against the sparse instrumentation and a cold clear lyrical melody illuminates the seasoned tracks.
Side A, “I was all you are,” is a collaboration of the two groups; Birds of Passage and I’ve Lost. The sound is philosophic in nature poetic in texture. After a few field recordings, simple melodious music and the lilting ambience, the album moves into two shorter solo songs, “Never Said Goodbye” and “Bullrush the Sun,” divided in between the two groups.
A charming course through dissonance and passion, the music creates that mysterious ‘inner peace.’ The sound comes off as dark, and even melancholic, but the feelings it produces grow in a calm and untroubled composure. A new sensation is brought to light and we wait to see what comes next from the two. Get a good listen and enjoy the experience – its the new sounds from Birds of Passage and I’ve Lost.”
-Ray Jackson
“A great combination of diverse arrangements, the album reaches for the sounds of a fun mixed experimentation. Rhythmic, dance-able, an eagerness to innovate, “King Necro Presents…Macronesia: The Mixtape.” The music deemphasizes melody and pushes groove and rhythm up front. Interlaced with sound recordings, either created or sampled off of late popular music, the appeal is slow and provocatively loose, jumping from genre to genre, instrument to instrument. Its a complex drive, an innovative amalgam, and an expression of the free mind. Listen to King Necro’s new tape, ‘Macronesia: The Mixtape’.”
-Ray Jackson
-Ray Jackson
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