Ever since the 2000s heyday of blogs and MySpace, music journalism has often come embedded with tracks for listening on demand. Before that, there were magazines that included a CD sampler in each issue, like CMJ New Music Monthly. And before that, there was TELLUS.
The pioneering audio cassette magazine was a product of the same bustling NYC downtown scene that has lately been revisited by artists from Madonna to Nirosta Steel, but it leaned on the less accessible side of the city's output at the time. "I would say it came out of and feeds into non-conformity," co-founder Joseph Nechvatal remembers. "This is music and art that has no place in the popular market." His fellow founder Carol Parkinson adds, "We just wanted an alternative. And we knew there were other people out there that wanted an alternative."
Launched in 1983 by Nechvatal, Parkinson, and Claudia Gould, TELLUS documented the skuzzy and forward-thinking sounds of Lower Manhattan, commissioning and publishing new works by musicians, composers, visual artists, poets, writers, choreographers, and performers from the area — all in the form of an audio cassette. It stands as a fascinating time capsule of a time when no wave, hip-hop, industrial, pop, and much more were colliding in the city.
That legacy will be preserved on the new vinyl reissue TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology, Vol. 1. Out in November via Earth Libraries, the 30-song collection features tracks from Sonic Youth, Liquid Liquid, Cargo Cult, Live Skull, James Tenney, George Brecht, Takehisa Kosugi, Carol Parkinson, Y Pants, and more. The records are remastered from the original cassette masters, packaged with archival photos and new liner notes from Thurston Moore.
Below, hear the compilation's opening track, Cargo Cult's "Plaid City," and check out the tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 Cargo Cult — "Plaid City"
02 The Scene Is Now — "Bugged, Wigged Out"
03 Y Pants — "Magnetic Attraction"
04 Liquid Liquid — "Groove To Go"
05 John Fekner City Squad — "2-4-5-7-9-11"
06 Carol Parkinson — "Heavybeat"
07 Sonic Youth — "Scream"
08 Patrick McGrath — "Spike Rising"
09 Bond Bergland — "Moonlight Ride"
10 Remko Scha — "Katadeedo Daynatadoh"
11 Paul Dresher — "Pygmy Vocal Music"
12 George Brecht — "Comb Music (Comb Event)"
13 Live Skull — "Pulverized By Gratitude"
14 Bruce Tovsky — "Field"
15 Brenda Hutchinson — "Wordplay"
16 Gregory Whitehead — "Eva Can I Stab Bats In A Cave"
17 David Linton — "Ringo"
18 David Rosenbloom — "Flowers"
19 Saurekeller — "Hiroshima"
20 Jim Farmer — "You Look Lovely In The Moonlight"
21 Chain Gang — "Night Plantation"
22 Angela Babin & Joe Dizney — "Work Song"
23 Lenny Pickett — "Dance Music For 4 Saxophones #3"
24 Anita Feldman And Michael Kowalski — "Riffle"
25 Tron Von Hollywood — "After Shakespeare" (Feat. Raina Jane Sherry)
26 Bite Like A Kitty — Excerpt from "Same Way"
27 Ron Kuivala — "Tl Intends (to enforce its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent permitted by law)"
28 James Tenney — "Septet For Electric Guitars"
29 Shelley Hirsch — "#39"
30 Takehisa Kosugi — "Paraphrases (Excerpt)"
TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology, Vol. 1 is out 11/20 via Earth Libraries. Pre-order it here.
