Underground Cassette Culture interview – “The purely digital experience isn’t satisfying people as much anymore”

Elusive label head Murray CY chats to Jude Iago James about the origins of his label, his new compilation, and personal mission to uncover lost tape gems…

In late 2017, the curious music peruser might have chanced on 80s Underground Cassette Culture tucked away on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The compilation could most readily be on such digital streaming platforms, but it ironically celebrated the crude universe of of the most fragile analog formats to ever achieve success: the cassette tape.

The 1980s saw to post-punk, central to which was a spirit of DIY anarchy. Music across the world was barely recordable for the home artist, but the use of tape recorders – multitrack if you were lucky – and perhaps a couple of sequence-able synths, changed all that overnight.

No longer were cassettes laden with barcodes, official-ish Dolby insignia, and endless credits. Their inner card covers (known as j-cards) were suddenly made of delicate paper stock, and simply featured hand-scrawled gothic or punk lettering and artwork. They contained very little explanation about the wily, elusive groups and solo artists that made them – save for perhaps a few loose references to the divey old backroom shows in which they were sold, in short runs of perhaps 10 per release. The question begged: “if the establishment can do it, why can’t I?”

We’re delighted at news of a second volume of 80s Underground Cassette Culture, for which Contort Yourself label owner Murray CY (the obsessive sourcer behind the music) eyeballs a second batch of 1980s ephemera. But unlike 2017’s edition, this one goes further, subtly linking the discontent of the 1980s to the malaise that grips us forty years later, in 2022. 

History repeats itself: the music, too (obscure pieces sourced internationally, with cameos from established names like If, Bwana and John J Lafia) sounds prototypical here. We’d hardly be surprised to hear half of these tracks in the glossy techno DJ set of today. But why did Murray choose what he chose? And why might tapes be making a comeback? To get to the bottom of such ponderings, we caught up with the brain behind it all.

Since the first compilation five years ago (apart from a few more solo EPs) Contort Yourself has seen something of a hiatus. At risk of sounding like an establishment mouthpiece, what explains the ‘gap in your CV’?

Personal and family related issues. I simply didn’t have the time or the energy to run the label. I had to focus on my family. Happy to say things are much better here now, hence the tentative return.

When and why did you start Contort Yourself?

*Checks Discogs to see when the first EP came out*…

Wow…2014! I can’t believe it was that long ago…hahaha…that’s crazy! Well, the concept for the label formed over a couple of years. A friend and I started a small club night in Glasgow playing post-punk, new wave, electronic, industrial type stuff, and in my hunt for interesting music to play I discovered the legendary Mutant Sounds music blog. This blog contained the most incredible selection of obscure, underground music I had ever heard! It’s still online but sadly all the download links are long dead. Anyway, I started to become obsessed with all the tapes he posted, in particular the crazy Neue Deutsche Welle and weird electronic stuff. When I had downloaded all the tapes from his blog I started obsessively downloading tapes from any blog I could find. 

Life was quite hard for me then and this downloading and listening to tapes became a kind of therapy. It was the only thing that kept me sane. During all this listening I kept noticing electronic tracks which I thought sounded almost contemporary. Wonderful tracks that to me had a kind of techno feel or vibe (I was a huge techno head in the 90s). I started to think it would be great to release these old tracks on vinyl but combine them with contemporary techno tracks to show the connection between the old and new and so I started Contort Yourself. Also, even before starting the label I thought it would be amazing to do a compilation LP of all the weird and wonderful tracks I was finding, so that was always in the back of my mind. Then three years after the label began I finally managed to do it… and here we are again!

Growing up in Glasgow, what significance did DIY and tape culture pose for you?

I grew up in the 80s/90s, where we used to tape each other’s LPs, or buy bootleg tapes of gigs, or tape stuff off the radio like John Peel shows, or make each other mixtapes, but that was as far as tape culture went for me. I only got into DIY culture in the late 90s when I ran an experimental music night and label in Glasgow but by then it was all about CD-Rs, not tapes. 

In the 90s/00s CD-Rs (CDs which you can record on to at home) replaced tapes as the new, cheap, DIY way to get your music out there. In a few years I’ll probably do a ‘90s Underground CD-R Culture’ series of LPs! 

Anyway, the DIY experimental music scene in Glasgow at that time was really buzzing and involved a diverse range of people who formed a supportive community. We would all be constantly recording music, jamming with each other, playing gigs and exchanging our music in much the same way as the DIY artists of the 80s would, the only difference being our medium of exchange was CD-Rs instead of tapes. 

Also, running a night meant I could invite artists from all over the world to play in Glasgow and this helped us to connect with a broader global network. Therefore DIY culture was hugely significant for me in Glasgow. I have to add though that to me, at that time, tapes were an anachronism. It was only later that I got seriously into tape culture.

This edition of 80s UCC relates tape culture to international tensions and an anti-establishment ethos among DIY artists in both 2022 and the 1980s. When did you begin to notice the similarity between then and now?

To be honest, I’m not that clever. The press release for the LP, which mentions the similarity between then and nowm was written by someone I know and it was he who made the connections. As he said, “Rich-poor divide widens. Unemployment soars. The East and West eyeball each other on the brink. 2022 isn’t too far off the 1980s. When I read that I thought, ‘Yep, he’s right!’

With renewed interest, tape sections still exist in small corners of record shops today. Manchester has its own dedicated cassette shop (the only of its kind in Europe), MARS Tapes. Sites like BandCDs even offer their own mail-order tape production services for labels. Artists we never thought would release their own cassettes – even for whom the format doesn’t seem to make sense, like hyperpop artists – are making them. Do you think an early 2020s cassette culture boom is on the cards? Do we need one?

I do think a boom is on the cards. Maybe it’s a reaction to the ubiquitous Cloud and associated music streaming services. The purely digital experience isn’t satisfying people as much any more and they are getting drawn back to the physical ownership of music. Or it could be tied to the worldwide cost of living increase. People have increasingly less disposable income but still want to buy music in physical form so a tape, which is basically half the price of a record, fits the bill nicely. The boom is somehow in sync with this worldwide financial contraction. Or maybe it’s simply that a new generation has realised that tapes are cool! Well, whatever the reason, there are definite boom vibes in the air. I don’t know if it’s needed, but it’s most definitely welcome. Next, we’ll have a MiniDisc boom!  

To you, does cassette culture align with a particular political ideology?

I’m afraid I’m not very well versed in this area but I’m sure it possibly does though I’ll have to leave it to those more knowledgeable to explain how.

Like the first release, each track is licensed with permission from the artists. What is the process like of tracking each artist down, and what was the most difficult song to license for the compilation?

The process can be quite epic but there’s nothing more rewarding than finally tracking down an artist after months of searching. The track listings of the LPs were of course dependent on who I could track down. There are a few tracks I would have loved to have put on the LPs but I was sadly unable to find the relevant artists. Thankfully though, I’ve been able to find most. 

To find an artist I check Discogs to see if they have a current website. If I’m very lucky they do, but generally most don’t. From here I do a good old Google search of their name and see what comes up. Again, if I’m lucky they might have a Facebook account. If not, I check LinkedIn. Beyond that I’m in the realm of emailing people who have the same name as the artist in the hope I get the right person. For instance, someone with the artist’s name might work for a telecommunications company in Germany so I email them asking if it’s them. This has actually worked a couple of times! However if I can’t find the artist directly then I will email all the labels they released their music on, which again isn’t straightforward as most of these 80s tape labels are long gone. If I get nowhere with this I will finally try and track down any other artists they worked with and see if they are still in touch with them or know anyone who is.

None of the songs were difficult to license. All the artists were more than happy to be part of the LP, and because none of the songs were released on any ‘big’ labels there were no extra licensing issues.

What can you tell us about some of the artists and tracks featured? Did you have any personal connections to any of them? 

Misteek was Zan Hoffman, who was very prolific in the 80s and who worked with 80s cassette legends such as Ken Clinger, Minoy and If, Bwana. He’s still producing music today and runs the label ZH72 which he mainly uses as a vehicle to release new music although he has also re-released music from his past including some of his 80s material. Well worth checking out! 

Stefan Schrader also played in a short lived new wave/post punk band called Projekt 3 who released one tape and one 7″. He is now a neurosurgeon.

The UPM track was taken from a compilation tape which was compiled by PCR who featured on Volume 1 of the 80s Cassette Culture LPs. UPM was Robert Morlock who was also one half of the duo Populäre Mechanik alongside Wolfgang Seidel who regularly collaborated with Conrad Schnitzler of Tangerine Dream/Kluster fame.

John J Lafia was also a film director and is best known for directing the film Child’s Play 2 featuring the infamous Chucky doll. However, he sadly took his own life during lockdown. 

I had no personal connections to any of the artists involved but have since got to know a few of them quite well.

Your selections often lean into techno and beat-driven dance music. While electro was an emerging thing in the 80s, some of the tracks (Peace Of Mind, Pressure Level, Nitsed, etc.) sound like prototypes for modern dance genres like broken beat, house and dubstep. But they were clearly made before those genres were coined. Was this link intentional on your part? Or was this sort of ‘renaissance’ sound simply natural to the electronic underground back then?

As mentioned before, yes, this link was definitely intentional. I became fascinated by these prototype tracks and wanted everyone to hear them. I wanted to see if everyone else was as amazed by them as I was! I guess back in their day most of these tracks were simply classed as experimental, but what wonderful experiments they were. Audio premonitions in a way.

This question goes for the first edition too: How did you extract the music from the original tapes with such quality? Were there concerns over what would happen to the audio when re-releasing the music from tape, and onto LP and cassette again? How did you get past these sonic hurdles?

I was actually surprised at how good the tracks on the vinyl sound. It just goes to show that if recorded well, once you get rid of any excess hiss and clean them up a bit, the general recording quality of cassette tapes is excellent. Most of the artists had master copies of their tracks and the sound quality of them was really good so I was lucky in that respect. I just took the tracks, tweaked them a bit myself and then got them mastered. If an artist didn’t have a copy of their original track then I would try and track down the person who ripped the tape that was uploaded to the blog where I originally found the tape/track so I could get the highest possible quality copy of the track. A few of the artists even sent me their tapes so that I could digitise them as they didn’t have the means to do this. In the end, the whole process was surprisingly painless.

What curios can we find on the inners and insert of the LP?

On the inners there are photos of all the artists involved and on the insert you’ll find all the original cassette artwork in full, glorious technicolour.

For the DIY artist, making tapes is rather expensive in 2022, even for a format that is historically recognised as affordable. What advice would you give to someone hoping to start a physicals label now?

I would say, find a way to do it and do it! If you can’t afford tapes and you want something physical then do it 90s style and use CD-Rs. They’re cheap as chips! Just get creative with the sleeve/packaging and you’re good to go. You can get them in different colours, 3″ ones, or even ones that look like vinyl. Plus they’re cheap to post… a definite bonus. Start with these and as interest in the label grows you can think about using tapes or even vinyl. I’ve noticed a lot of bands and labels now do a CD version of their releases to accompany the other formats so there’s definitely a market for CD-Rs. GOOD LUCK!

Click here to pre-order 80s Underground Cassette Culture Volume 2 is available for preorder now