Released: 21/10/2022
Sometimes described as a cheeky prankster to vinyl’s elder statesman, the audio tape has impressively managed to stick around in the face of all reasonable logic that it would eventually go the way of Beanie Babies and Tab Clear (ask your parents). And I’m extremely glad it has, for, like other ladies and men of a certain age, I have very fond youthful memories of spending hours and hours making compilation tapes for potential and actual girlfriends, and as such am of the opinion that any old chancer can burn a CD from iTunes, or, lord help us, make a Spotify playlist, but a good mix tape necessarily takes a lot of thought and effort. As John Cusack’s character Rob says in the best record store-based film ever made, High Fidelity (although, granted, its only real rival for that title is Empire Records), “The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem.” Or as, more pithily and obliquely, the titular anti-hero of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, says, “Spooool!”
All of which is to say that, while noteworthy tape releases are obviously few and far between these days, the goodly folks at independent British live promoters Eat Your Own Ears recently released a second (very-limited-edition) tape EP (including download code), which, like the first, features a brilliant array of rare and classic tracks from EYOE artists past, present and future, including ‘Rwanagaguhunga’ by South Africa’s John Wizards (his first new music in almost 10 years), the absolutely stunning ‘Aliens Wanna Touch’ by Michelle Gurevich (which would be completely at home on any David Lynch film soundtrack), and a classic album cut from the dearly-missed Electrelane (‘Oh Sombra!’). As Sean Ryder almost certainly never said, ‘It’s great to buy tapes, yeah!’