Freie Kassettenkultur by Girls On Tape

"Free-Culture" is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free or open culture without compensation to, or the consent of, the work's original creators, through various forms of media. "Freikörperkultur" is a German naturism movement. "Freie Kassettenkultur" is the true essence of all of the above in cassette format. So somewhere between the New Carrollton’s “If He's An Ass Here He Won't Be A Horse There” (on the legendary Watergate Tapes), some Radio On radioplays & bicycle tours in Berlin and "that" mysterious single 7” cover, Girls On Tape release their second cassette through Coherent States.

Girls On Tape is the collaborating project that Jeff Surak and Rinus van Alebeek started some five years ago in Berlin. Coming from a long road of collaborating through the years and using various forms of media indeed, Jeff and Rinus vandalize each other’s ideas in a free concept that includes live manipulations on side A and Jeff’s sonic alchemy upon Rinus’ pre-compositions on side B. Tapes, walkmans, sound collages and spoken word parts are blended together in a, once again, peculiar and devastating way. Be it some early ZF-like experimentations or the artists’ unique talent of composing what exactly comes to mind whenever the words "cassette music" come up, we cannot but play the tape again and again and shout out loud the words: Freie! Kassettenkultur!

Jeff Surak’s activity in experimental/noise music and cassette underground begun in early 80’s, when he launched Watergate Tapes, a label later reformed as Zeromoon. Some of the monikers he used to perform under are 1348, Violet and Sovmestnoye Predpriyatiye (from the time he was living in Russia). From 2005 to 2018 he curated the annual Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music in Washington DC.

Rinus van Alebeek is a writer, collage artist, dictaphone pioneer, curator of Staalplaat’s cassette label Staaltape, co-founder of Berlin-based radio Radio On, and Coherent States’ most frequent collaborator, having released Diktat’s "Tour De Force" (CS-7) and his very own "Early Piano Works Volume 2: The American Recitals" (CS-13) back in 2016.

Tracklist

1.	Echo 1	4:10

2.	Just Because You Aren't Listening Doesn't Mean I Don't Exist	0:38

3.	You've Lost The Red Thread	6:55

4.	Urgency_Scarcity	7:50

5.	Tourism	6:57

6.	Tourism III	2:58

7.	A Brief Promenade	4:40

8.	Linke Seite	3:39

Credits

released December 2, 2021

Written and recorded by Rinus van Alebeek and Jeff Surak
Cover concept by Girls On Tape
Layout by John Kontandreopoulos / Semitone Labs

CS-39. coherentstates.com. 2021

License