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That ol’ spirit and image of SF has meant a lot of things loved and lost over the past couple of centuries - but the most recent golden age is still cooling in the hearts and minds of many nu music enthusiasts, God bless ‘em! In truth, it’s already hardened into fact and myth - or in the case of this fantabulous GOD? release, into retrospective compilation, with the far-flung fascinations of the Folding Cassetteslabel repping the time and place for our dew-eyed purposes.
Folding Cassettes was pretty much done and sorted when the newera of peak cassette improbably broke wide in the early 2010s. Backin 2001, when founded by Mike Donovan, it was more representative of the exclusive confines of the urban underground, well representedas always around the Bay area. Mike had been jitterbugging through the scene for several years, playing with this group and that, startinga label and releasing some actual LPs and CDs (to no avail) - and with notoriety fronting Sic Alps still several years hence, he had the time and energy to reach out and tap the shoulder of his fave local talents, not to mention legends, resulting in a sequence of dozens of SF-ite releases on Folding Cassettes.
The various musics curated included everything from lo-fi to free-form to metal (so far as rock was concerned), with further genre distinctions including abstract electronics, laptop noise, contempo jazz-fusion, country-folk and even comedy, all of it delivered with ahighly demanding, archly punk sensibility. The players? Hailing from names you might recognize today - members of O.C.S. (multipleones), Gang Gang Dance, Child Abuse, Krallice, Lightning Bolt and Comets on Fire, all of them getting down with the freedom and some truly head-cleaning sounds. Plus Kit Clayton (as himself). Mikey Wild. A slice of (the now-defunct style of) anonymous crank call comedy. And even a little number from curator Mike Donovan himself. All burned into vinyl for the first time ever.
Sit with the LP, and while it’s literally pounding your skull and hooking into your cochlea, dig the back cover. Old school. The liner notes there unpack whats, whos and wheres for us, bringing other as pectsof The Way It Was in those DIY days back into visceral life in all their manually typewritten glory. No details skimped. Personal memoirs and, of course, a discographical list of all 44 Folding Cassettesreleases, including the unreleased Tits2 single.
‘Folding Cassettes Greatest Hits’ is a wild night on the old town andan earful that’s awful too - one of the bravest, most intense recordsyou’re gonna hear this year.
Tracklist
Patrick Michael Mullins -
Please Recycle (edit)
Bear Klawz - Untitled
Kit Clayton - It’s Not About
Space
Netmen - Untitled 13 (edit)
Big Techno Werewolves -
Birthday Party
Freedom Jazz - Song One
from Session Two of
Freedom Jazz (edit)
Nam - Trading N’s for J’s
NVH/Chasny - …No Refund
(edit)
Skeletor - Take Yr $ &
Bash Yr Skull
ABK - Untitled
Mike Donovan - Xmas Pie
Unknown - Cocaineville
Bananas - Hippocleides
Doesn’t Care
Mikey Wild - Fucked Up
Wilson (edit)
No Boss - No Boss Theme