The Walrus - Music With Big Fuckin' Teeth!

03/26/2008

VISUAL NOTES: Castanets and The Resurrection of The Cassette

Hallelujah! The cassette tape is not dead! This wonderful news was revealed to me courtesy of uhu, an independent live recording project in Portland, OR.

The cassette I received in the mail held a seriously trippy, seriously awesome cover insert. The image was created from a hand-printed concentric circle design on silver card stock overlaid with a curvy doodle motif on transparency paper. The tape itself housed documentation of new and old tracks from Castanets West Coast Tour from this past January and February. This was my dream come true: Total aesthetic reinvigoration of an object that is seen as "dated" through musical content and compelling physical craft!

Below you will find two versions of my favorite Castanets track, a cover of Viking Moses' "One Arm Around The Sinner," an achingly sweet and minimal tune sung from the viewpoint of a child prostitute. The first has been digitized from the uhu recording. The second is from the Castanets/Shapes and Sizes Split EP from their Spring 2007 tour.

VISUAL NOTES is brought to you by Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - a clothing company that hires innovative, contemporary artists to design exceptional and wearable pieces that combat the troubling possibility of artwork losing its presence and power in our image-saturated society.