Description
long before streaming platforms revolutionised the way music was delivered, a small object captured a new wave of music and pop culture, carrying sounds that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, the cassette tape. “cassette culture”, refers to an international music scene and network that developed in the wake of punk in the second half of the 1970s and featured a large number of amateur musicians outside the established music industry. since 1987, contagious orgasm and his label sssm from japan has been active in many diverse areas, intersecting experimental electronic noise and was part of various international tape noise scenes. without any electronic ways of communication, this network was the meeting point of the like-minded with their love of experimental music. it was the place, where stefan alt aka salt met contagious orgasm for the first time and it was the beginning of a long and intimate friendship. it’s a strange feeling, thinking back to how it was, sending tapes with music, handwritten letters translated with the help of a dictionary, to a person you barely know, to a country you’ve never visited, whose language you don’t understand – literally on the other side of the planet. it worked out so well and intensely, that we met several times in nagoya, japan and regensburg, germany – music was just the beginning.
“es wird immer weitergehen – musik als träger von ideen”. this legendary sentence from kraftwerk has proven true once again – thank you, music for bringing us and our thoughts together. the music label ant-zen was established 30 years ago as a platform for experimental music and art and has been part of the cassette culture network. today we celebrate the 30+ years friendship of contagious orgasm and salt with the split lp “a strange illustrated guide”. one soundtrack in two chapters showing the perception & consistency, deviation & continuity with swirling sounds, intoxicating psychedelia and crude samples, found rhythms and harmonies, concrete sounds and ambient noise. the logo artwork and cutout of the vinyl sleeve contains the initials of both artists, while the collage work harks back to the cutup methods used for covers of many cassette culture releases. it includes a lot of detail from the travels to najoya and regensburg, plus several thoughts and experiences we had together. feel trapped in our unique sonic unreality.
credits
released April 19, 2023
