Tape Wizard is a new mini-documentary on Amulets, a project of Portland audio + visual artist Randall Taylor.
Taylor is part of a new generation of musicians exploring the artifacts and lo fi sounds of cassette audio processing and tape loops.
The short documentary, by Kilian Vidourek, follows Taylor for a week, leading up to his album release show for Between Distant and Remote.
“This experience was really fascinating for both of us,” notes Taylor, “and I think he did a great job capturing me in my element.”
Nice reminder of how things were in the beforetimes.
The short doc itself reminds me of what they do at La Fabrique culturelle, here in Quebec.
https://www.lafabriqueculturelle.tv
I love this guy. He’s just a regular dude without any pretension, loving what he does and having fun doing it.
Saw it, wish it was longer but great just the same !
Ok just tape for tape’s sake then……sure you can create this wonderful lofi lifestyle tapestry that swallows easy and can play in the background and not bother anyone, but in the long run is it really interesting music?….It’s very much focused on the tools, almost obsessively….Hainbach, Amulets, Etc…finding exotic tech and then putting some random stuff through it, not really focusing on interesting musical ideas, but on a bunch of tools and gear to create a comfy background loop…the result is not important. It’s way we made it! Look at my rare diy walkman! same with all the eurorack content…just noodling and looping and in the end it all sounds meh….You can hook up 20 loficassetteloopmodularpiezofieldkitwhateverstuff and still make uninteresting music. When Basinski and Eno were doing this kind of stuff in the day it was kind of new, but now it feels like lofi caffe latte from starbucks. Sorry don’t want to be negative…just a bit bored with all the hippest hypes.
Just a little hint for you, buddy – if something doesn’t click for you personally, it doesn’t mean, it is not interesting or creative, m’kay? Lot’s of people love lo-fi ambient music, and actually listen to it, m’kay? So, maybe just stop whining about some guy making music, that you personally don’t like, and instead just go and listen to the music, that you like, m’kay? You see, not everything in this world is meant to be made for you specially, just embrace this fact, m’kay?
Agreed with FRA. On top of that, the guy literally says that he needs to play stuff and just get whatever he was feeling out there. “I played guitar and now I feel better”. He’s not pretentious or trying to please everyone, clearly. He does it for his own sake.
Hey man,
I feel the exact same way. My issue is that I really want to respect each individual artist and their particular paths towards creation. On the other hand, I am allergic to pretense and unnecessary emphasis on “the journey”, which is hipster-code for gear collecting and philosophical meandering. I like Heinbach and Amulet’s videos but, despite each their respective successes, I think that Music Concrete is an “Anti-genre”. these glitchy, tech-based looping and ambient productions are more a statement of the artists inability or rejection to the adherence of a specific genre/aestehtic/lifestyle.
It’s the equivalent to a sonic identity crisis wherein these artists wear offbeat clothes that seem to reflect the process of their creations, sampling from punk, nerd, hip-hop, business-casual – – all the while without a solid foundation in anything (just like the music they make). I suspect this is why these types make for the best brand ambassadors because they are passionate and knowledgeable but their potential appeal is amorphous and applicable to anyone, thus quite effete.
Maybe it’s not “interesting” music, maybe it is just a wonderful lofi lifestyle tape story like you say, a little brush of aural ephemera as we move through…and why not…not everything has to aim for creative greatness, sometimes the act of making something is the important thing and we celebrate that.