unreachable by slow_the_tape

"the D.I.Y.-ness and expected lack of fidelity add immediate appeal for me as one who grew up hearing music on cassette... This is as analog as it gets." - Letters From A Tapehead

"Love it! - Critical Masses

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zen guitar: six

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for eight days in July/August 2023, i read one chapter a day of philip toshio sudo's book 'zen guitar'

after reading each chapter, I wrote and recorded a new piece of music

the corresponding chapter names and tracks are:

zoom in, zoom out: track 1
trust the take: track 2
attend to detail: track 3
thought: process: track 4
carriage: track 5
sound painting: track 6
tone: track 7
intuition: track 8

the process of writing and recording this album was very different from all previous slow_the_tape releases

all the compositions were recorded on one c90 tape, using a fostex 280 four-track cassette recorder

i recorded four guitar parts for each piece - one for each of the fostex's four 'tracks'

i wrote and played each guitar part as quickly as i could, in as few takes as possible

i kept going until the tape ran out

while recording and mixing, i embraced my ongoing preoccupations with immediacy and imperfection (both of which, in part, birthed my slow_the_tape project) by including (and sometimes magnifying) the quirks and limitations of the medium (wow & flutter, tape hiss, clicks, pops, etc.)

the tracklisting represents the order in which the pieces were recorded

this is the sixth in a series of slow_the_tape albums inspired by sudo's 'zen guitar'

for more details on the process behind making this album, please read the liner notes for zen guitar one:
slowthetape.bandcamp.com/album/the-self-i-present-to-the-world

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"slow_the_tape is the solo project by songwriter Andrew Howie, whose latest album, unreachable, surfaced on 2/3/25. This work is the sixth installment of a series entitled zen guitar, named for a book of the same name written by author Philip Toshio Sudo. The album opens with its longest track, “the trap,” which combines a picked guitar melody and additional layers of distorted guitar sound that gradually build up to a sizable din. Sonics were captured onto cassette, which facilitates audible flaws and discordance that act as additional seats in Howie’s ensemble so to speak. While the album does sound largely improvised and its construction is rather coarse—I’ll admit that the D.I.Y.-ness and expected lack of fidelity add immediate appeal for me as one who grew up hearing music on cassette—there lies an inferred intention to many of the textures (“duvet,” “school gym hall with wooden floorboards”) and atmospherics (“‘definitely the most disturbing film i’ve ever seen’”) herein, all of which contribute to the album’s melancholic tone. While there are at times dramatic shifts in volume, the same cannot be said for mood. Though unreachable is available digitally, this is a cassette-only release that is physically recorded upon request. This is as analog as it gets."
- Letters From A Tapehead


"So glad this tape finally arrived! Andrew Howie drops 'unreachable' by his slow_the_tape project on Autoclave Records. Almost-improv’d to four-track, each piece of this mini album was inspired by and composed after reading each chapter in philip toshio sudo's book 'zen guitar.' Love it!
- Critical Masses

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solo-guitar project of scottish musician/songwriter andrew howie

on-the-fly sonic chronicles, combining ambient textures with drifting, fragile loops of distorted & delicate electric guitar

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all album cover photography by @onetenthhero

bsky.app
andrew-howie.com