The compact cassette was developed by recently deceased Lou Ottens (1926-2021) and introduced in 1963. Originally designed for dictation machines, improvements in fidelity led them to be ideal for audio recording and is largely what it’s remembered for today whether in prerecorded or blank format. While the cassette has had a resurgence among the “trendy” and the perceived “hip” for their collection of “kitsch”, the idea of the cassette as a cultural tool or weapon is rarely looked at.
Behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union used Melodiya- the state controlled recording firm to release music. Defined by shortages of prerecorded music and by censorship, only “official” bands were recorded and all releases were vinyl. Very few western or “pre-approved” acts were issued as most were banned as “ideologically harmful”. The introduction of the music cassette to the Eastern Bloc lead to underground, angrier, younger groups not allowed to record in studios to covertly release music. Soon after, tape trading and smuggling (Germany’s Scorpions have been implicated in this endeavor as well as other CIA OPS for those interested) allowed bands from USSR, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia to be heard.
Often, in Poland those recordings were taped over albums or language lessons officially sanctioned by the government- not only a practical necessity as blank tapes were hard to come by, but also a pointed act of resistance!
Cassettes allowed easy duplication and distribution of foreign records and bands, with the tape trading leading to the rise of musical genres that were ignored, too extreme (musically or ideologically) for major notice. This gave the artist a way to spread their message and sound worldwide and this worldwide network made it possible for people who would have never corresponded to share their art, culture, and ideas with each other.
Cassettes and home recording allowed for the pirating of music and programming, allowing for further dissemination of suppressed and hard to find recordings. It also allowed for the copying of songs or full albums whether from the radio or friends copy, and in some cases as in the UK record stores would rent out duplicators and albums then sell the customer blank tapes and allow them to copy. The Dead Kennedy’s 1981 In God We Trust, Inc was issued with side B left blank and printed on the label “Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help”.
Cassettes made your personal music collections portable. You now had the capability to score the soundtrack to your day, your emotions, you were given the chance to determine your mental programming, the cassette gave us psychological choices.
As a catalyst for social change in developing nations as with dictatorial Chile where blacklisted music, and political speeches were spread via tape and in Iran where one of it’s most famous political uses was implemented.
Used as a tool for the dissemination of sermons by Ayatollah Khomeini throughout Iran before and leading up to the 1970 Iranian Revolution. Urging the overthrow of the regime of Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
While you may wonder what’s the point in talking about obsolete technology when anything “I ever wanted to listen to, watch, or read is at my fingertips?”. Truth is that’s just data that you don’t actually own. Data can be changed or removed and just because it’s available to you today doesn’t mean you’ll have access tomorrow with or without your say! It will be determined for you, you do not have the agency to decide what is or isn’t acceptable for yourself. Those are made for you by somebody else who has their own agenda. A physical copy is yours, it not only can be manipulated by you, it can be redistributed and even concealed by you, and barring jacked-booted seizure and door to door contraband sweeps it can not be removed from your possession. Meaning as much as they try it isn’t deleted at the push of a button, they can never fully remove it from society. A gnawing worm capable of working it’s way back in.
So in continued pursuit of MNDWR and to counteract the current narrative, WOLFCHILD A.D. will begin Magnitizdat with ANALOGUE TERRORISM PRODUCTIONS. Cassette based audial assault, mindwar for magnetic tape.
To mark this, we announce our first release:
MAHR’s new full length “Death Comes Adorned in the Sun”
