a sound reaction
VINYL might be making a comeback but for one Swansea music fan, cassettes are the future.
Ant Jones launched Lavender Sweep, a DIY cassette label in January, and has so far released eight tapes featuring a mix of Welsh musicians and those from further afield.
So successful has he been that he’s pulled off something of a coup by releasing a four-track cassette featuring long lost songs by Madchester favourites The Paris Angels.
“I started the label at the beginning of this year after reading an article on a cassette tape revival,” said Ant. “I was already a fan of the format, so thought I’d get involved and give it a go.
“I mainly look for indie/punk/folk and electronic bands but I’m open to most genres. The label was also inspired by the ’80s DIY cassette scene, so I try and do as much of the creation of the cassette as possible, including the majority of artwork, dubbing the tapes and sometimes adding marble effects to the cassette shells to give every tape a uniqueness.”
To underline the popularity of cassettes Saturday, October 14, saw the worldwide Cassette Store Day – launched in 2013 as a celebration of the importance of the cassette format – and while not quite yet as big as Record Store Day, it did see many artists across the globe releasing limited edition cassettes.
Ant’s Lavender Sweep label was at the forefront of the releases putting out three limited edition cassettes – from The Paris Angels, Twins Natalia and Welsh outfit Pony Fringe – to add to the five cassettes the label has already put out.
“We have released five tapes, a demo re-issue from Californian Shoegazers Ozean, a new release from Swansea indie rock band Suns, Leicester based indie band Lid have let us do a compilation of all the music that they recorded in the ’90s, Swansea experimental band The Rusty Nutz championed by Kerrang in 2000 returned with new music and we reissued a demo from ’80s cult synthpop act Turquoise Days. Basically these were all bands I liked the sound of, or was already a fan of, then I just approached them with an idea for a limited tape release and luckily they were all into the idea.”
Ant said his aim is to unearth those long lost gems – songs wrongly consigned to history that he hopes to resurrect.
“Although the label has been releasing some new bands, I’ve been looking out for unknown artists from the days before the internet,” he said. “There’s so much new music out there that can easily be accessed online, but what I’m interested in discovering are the bands from the days before the internet that didn’t have that platform to showcase their music.
“There’s so many great artists out there that never made it, yet deserved to be heard. Next year I hope to reissue some of the bands I’ve found on tape through charity shops, boot sales and eBay. The hardest thing is tracking down the members, especially as some of these tapes were recorded 30 plus years ago. I’m also looking to release a few forgotten Swansea based artists from the ’80s and ’90s.”
More: www.lavendersweep.bandcamp.com