Cassette Tape 2.0 Media Plasticity in Underground Music Networks
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Cassette Tape 2.0 Media Plasticity in Underground Music Networks A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2021 James R. Vail School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 2 Table of Contents List of Figures 5 List of Interviews 6 Location of Survey Responses 10 Abstract 11 Declaration 12 Copyright statement 13 Acknowledgements 14 Introduction The Cassette Tape: A Plastic Medium The Cassette Tape and Other New Media 17 Circulating Underground Music 22 Three Sites of Plasticity: Texts, Institutions, Publics 27 Out with the Old, Out with the New 31 The Power of Use 33 Research Methodology 37 Thesis Outline 40 Chapter 1 Beyond Old and New Media: Obsolescence, Temporality, and the Digital Age Introduction 44 Three Temporalities of Technological Change 47 Tape Time: The Symptom and the Cure 54 Digital Centres, Analogue Margins 59 After the Digital Age 64 Chapter 2 A Genealogy of Physical Media: Residual and Emergent Ways of Listening Introduction: Historicising Materiality 68 Copying and Transmission Networks 70 3 Deep Listening: Mixtapes, Playlists, Algorithms 80 Mobility, the Domestic Sphere, and the Event of Listening 93 Conclusion: Categorising Media 103 Chapter 3 Abundance and Curation: Residual and Emergent Intermediaries Introduction 105 The Dilemma of Democracy and the Fantasy of Abundance 107 The Ambivalent History of DIY 114 The DIY Avant-garde 121 Curation 128 Curation I: Distinctions 130 Curation II: Series 138 Curation III: Visibility 147 Conclusion 155 Chapter 4 Access, Artefact, Archive: Residual and Emergent Ways of Possessing Introduction 157 Property and Possession 160 The Public Sphere and the Digital Commons 166 Precarious Publics 173 Domesticating the Recording 176 The Fetish and the Boundaries of Possession 181 The Archive 185 Conclusion: Cassette Tapes Forever 195 Chapter 5 Work and Support: Residual and Emergent Economies of Value Introduction 197 The Autonomous Economy 201 The Calculative Economy I: Labels and Listeners 209 The Calculative Economy II: Bandcamp 214 4 The Support Economy 219 Platforms and the Support Economy 233 Conclusion 240 Conclusion The Politics of Plasticity 242 Bibliography 250 Discography 286 Filmography 286 Websites 286 Word count: 79,982 5 List of Figures Fig. 1 - Music media used most frequently by label owners and listeners 79 Fig. 2 - Listener types by use of digital and physical media 96 Fig. 3 - Intermediaries regularly used by listeners 129 Fig. 4 - Label and artist relationships 134 Fig. 5 - Beat Happening cassette J-card 139 Fig. 6 - The Screaming Dukduks cassette J-card 140 Fig. 7 - CDR cover from Japanese noise artist Unbalance Neurose (2003) 141 Fig. 8 - Dinzu Artefacts cassette designs 144 Fig. 9 - Bandcamp label page for Never Anything Records 145 Fig. 10 - Reasons for downloading music without paying 172 Fig. 11 - Consumption patterns of downloaders and non-downloaders 224 Fig. 12 - Frequency of paid downloads 224 Fig. 13 - Bandcamp purchase prompt window 234 Fig. 14 - Bandcamp artist page for Dis Fig 236 6 List of Interviews Record Labels Name(s) Name of City/Town Country Other Information Given Label(s) David Tombed Visions Manchester UK Performs in Locean McLean Alan and Jack Concrete Block Leeds UK Jack performs in Soft Issues Rick Must Die Blackpool UK Records Paul Fort Evil Fruit Cork Ireland Paddy Tesla Tapes Manchester UK Performs in Gnod Graham Fractal Meat London UK Performs as Graham Dunning Cuts Dunning Britt Brown Not Not Fun, Los Angeles US Contributor at The 100% Silk Wire Adam ACR London UK Contributor for Bandcamp Daily https://www.discogs.com/Beat-Happening-Beat-Happenin g/release/https://www.discogs.com/Beat-Happening -Beat-Happening/release/62992762 9927 Matthew Patient Sounds Chicago, IL US Steve Cruel Nature Newcastle UK Andrew Eggs in Aspic Newcastle UK Joe McKay Dinzu Artefacts Los Angeles US Kazuya NEUS-318 Osaka Japan Performs as Kazuya Ishigami Ishigami Ian Martin Call and Tokyo Japan Music journalist for Response Japan Times. Brian Durr Diskotopia Tokyo Japan Koshiro Hino BirdFriend Osaka Japan Works in Newtone Records. Performs in GOAT. Hiroyuki Eerie Noise Sendai Japan Performs as Hiroyuki Chiba Chiba Joshua Muzan Editions Nara Japan Performs as Stefane Endurance. Andreas Muzan Editions Osaka Japan Holderbach Anonymous Monorail Press Los Angeles US 7 Markus Econore Mönchen- Germany gladbach David GALTTA New York US Performs in Synthetic Lackner Love Dream Noel Meek End of the Auckland New Zealand Contributor at The Alphabet Wire Records, God in the Music Phil Julian The Tapeworm Berlin/London Germany/UK Performs as Phil Julian Silvia Yerevan Tapes Bologna Italy D. Petri Aubjects Bloomington, US IL Zach Neologist Omaha, NE US Productions Jeff Never Anything Portland, OR US Michał Czaszka Edinburgh UK Stefan Faux Amis Utrecht Netherlands Justin Front and Follow Manchester UK Anonymous Maple Death London UK Quintus Last Visible Dog Los Angeles US Sean and Lee Burger Records Fullerton, CA US Run Burger record store. Geng PTP New York US Performs as King Vision Ultra Benjamin BLIGHT Washington US Performs in Luna DC Honey Shane Sinneslochen Los Angeles US Doug Verses Washington US DC Gabe Lillerne Tapes Chicago, IL US Dwight Crash Symbols Morgantown, US WV Anonymous Conditional Berlin Germany Records Pedro OTA Not given Portugal Miguel OTA Helsinki Finland Ryan Dais Records, New York US 8 Robert & Leopold Philip White Anticausal New York US Systems Bentley Decontrol New York US Records Dylan Field Hymns Not given US Record Stores Name Record Store City/Town Country Other Information Eric Thousands of Dead New York US Co-runs the label Gods Thousands of Dead Gods. Trevor Jacknife Records Los Angeles US Musicians Name Artist Name City/Town Country Given Tzu Ni Tzu Ni Tokyo Japan Duenn Duenn Fukuoka Japan Colin Colin Webster London UK Webster Yves Malone Yves Malone Toronto Canada Kota Cemetery Tokyo Japan Watanabe Kyōsuke Obey Unit Tokyo Japan Terada Journalists Name Publication(s) City/Town Country Tristan Bath The Quietus Vienna Austria Mike Tabs Out Delaware US Manufacturers 9 Name Company City/Town Country Steve Stepp National Audio Springfield, US Company MO 10 Location of Survey Responses Location Number US 56 Canada 8 Mexico 1 UK 53 Germany 7 Netherlands 3 Ireland 3 France 3 Spain 2 Denmark 2 Sweden 2 Finland 2 Bulgaria 2 Ukraine 2 Czechia 1 Australia 5 Japan 1 Total 153 Listeners were surveyed anonymously and are labelled from L1 – L153. 11 Abstract This thesis is concerned with the ways in which the cassette tape has been remade as a new medium through changing uses, social relationships, institutional arrangements, and industrial contexts. Declared a dead format at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the format has made a steady resurgence from the late 2000s to the present day. Drawing on in-depth interviews, survey data, listening diaries, and ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis examines the historically changing role of the cassette within contemporary underground experimental and electronic music networks that span North America, Western Europe, and Japan. It traces the multiple ways in which the cassette tape – as a phonographic media system – has become entangled with and distributed across various digital platforms. Expanding upon the work of Jonathan Sterne, I theorise a concept of media plasticity that is sensitive to the changing and overlapping boundaries of media systems as manifested within multiple historical layers of practice and circulation. Chapter 1 offers a review of the existing literature on the resurgence of analogue media. It provides a critique of the linear media-historical narratives that define the cassette tape as an obsolete technology. Subsequently, each of the four key chapters traces a genealogy of a particular aspect of contemporary music circulation. Chapter 2 examines the way that the category of media ‘physical media’ is produced through historically changing patterns of listening. Chapter 3 traces the changing role of the independent record label in a media environment characterised by an abundance of cultural material. It shows how many independent record labels have moved away from explicit political motivations and have become primarily curatorial organisations. Chapter 4 maps out the changing practices of ownership and cultural memory that characterise the release and consumption of recordings in contemporary underground music networks. It shows that the circulation of physical media has taken on an archival role in the context of precarious digital platforms. Finally, chapter 5 traces the emergence of a gift economy of support surrounding physical media. This thesis demonstrates that the contemporary cassette tape is inseparably entangled with the logics of several digital media platforms. As such, it is more appropriate to think of the contemporary cassette tape as a new medium. 12 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 13 Copyright Statement i. The author of this dissertation (including any appendices and/or schedules to this dissertation) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this dissertation, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has entered into. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the dissertation, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this dissertation, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties.