Cassette Mythos

I purchased this book in 2015, unfortunately Amazons stock is old stock from 20 years ago, the New book from amazon is worn and yellowed from age. The content is a little more 80s than i was expecting, there are a few interesting pages, but overall not a cohesive story. This is a basic cut and paste collection of a bunch of indie zine one or two page clips.

Yes, of course it is a collection of indie zine articles and that is the point of its existence as an anthology. Cassette Culture as a concept and an era may seem ephemeral now like the physical medium it was based on, but the culture was an outgrowth of the punk D.I.Y. ethos into many streams of expression. And that is what the book is largely about, the creative processes of underground artists and thinkers who mostly never sniffed mainstream recognition. The book has several dozen articles that explore various creative theories and the thought processes behind production approaches that in most cases are only incidentally tied to the means of distribution on tapes. Thus, this document of the era is about the creative zeitgeist behind indie distribution and is far more interesting and relevant to the present that I believe your review gave it credit. I don't think article titles like "Sonic Darwinism", "Noise Techniques", "Necessity and Choice in Musical Forms", "Home-Modified and Home-Built Instruments" or "The New Orality" are indications of trivial zine juvenalia, but point to this being a very interesting collection after all.

I was there! Although this book is very USA orientated it does capture the spirit of the period of the cassette underground which has been overtaken by modern technogy, probaly to the detriment of experimentatation. In the same way that people are influenced by their "parents" catalogue of lifestyle perhaps this may inspire people past the instantness of the modern interaction of facebook et all that leaves a lesser footprint.