The Null Device

The latest trend in low-tech music performance: cassette jockeying. Like turntablism only more retro, and without the godlike stature and bootywhang of superstar DJs. Heh; it reminds me of a live act I saw in between acts at the Empress; it was a guy who called himself Son of Icewoman and played hand-spliced tape loops on various old reel-to-reel tape recorders attached to a mixer. Not quite block-rocking beats; more like experimental noise textures.

I wonder whether anyone has tried using the magnetic strips on Metcards or similar cards for recording music; given a sufficiently dismantled tape recorder (or perhaps just a read head wired up to an amplifier), one could swipe the card back and forth, scratching up a loop (or, more probably, a fragment of a loop). (via one.point.zero)

There are 4 comments on "":

Posted by: dave
http://
Thu Feb 28 15:33:41 2002

I saw a performance last fall that included audio samples on a card with a magnetic strip being swiped through a reader, at various speeds (analogue, obviously).

Posted by: cos
http://polydistortion.net/monkey/
Fri Mar 1 04:50:08 2002

...plus there's others like Laurie Anderson in the mid-80's with her violin that had tape instead of strings on the bow (see _Home of the Brave_).

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Fri Mar 1 07:39:21 2002

I heard that Laurie Anderson did something similar, playing an instrument which looked like a violin, only with the bow consisting of magnetic tape and the body containing read heads, or something similar.

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Fri Mar 1 07:40:15 2002

Heh; I believe you're the one who told me about it too. :-)

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