Paris Tape Run 2 + Reviews

The New Edition

-various stages of the packaging-

-The tape-

“…every single copy of these Paris Tape Run tapes is unique & priceless… If only I’d be able to earn some spare money, as a night porter, for example, or even as a drugs runner, God knows I’d buy all of them.”

– Harold Schellinx in SoundBlog

“… it presents a slightly unreal quality that I find very enchanting. Or maybe it is a sense of heightened reality, encountering small glimpses of the truth in broken images…”

– Ed Pinsent in The Sound Projector

Paris Tape Run 2

Side A ( rive droite) – curated by Anton Mobin

:SUCH: – to form a single sheet
FUSILLER – les saturations parisiennes
(NOX FACTIO) – our fortune, our fate
DINAHBIRD – different rains (mix JP RENOULT)
ANTON MOBIN – reflets fragmentés

Side B ( rive gauche) – curated by Julie Rousse

XIUHCOATL – unabomber
PERRINE EN MORCEAUX – tout consensus necessairement
ment
BÉRANGÈRE MAXIMIN et COLIN JOHNCO – haunted mansion
JASSEM HINDI – a prayer to the devil, his fellows, and his delight/l’enfant de tout à l’heure entre sans dire un mot
JULIE ROUSSE – Mes rêves errent, sur des plaines dénudées

The First Edition of
Paris Tape Run 2 is recorded on a white chrome cassette of 40 minutes. The cassette is partly covered by coloured paper. The inlay contains a small sticker and a sheet on which are found the titles and basic information. This all is wrapped in white rice-paper and held together by a white or orange or blue or red banderol made of silk paper. Is Sold Out.

Available at staalplaat store, or direct order: staaltape at staalplaat dot com, costs 6.95 euro ( shipping not included).

This is not a compilation or a cadavre exquise. The artists on the tape knew that they were a part of a run. The tape travelled from Berlin to Paris, and in the town from street corner to bar to garden to somebody’s home and so on until it got back to Berlin again. The passing of the tape was by hand. People had to meet each other. No postal traffic was used. Once an artist received the tape he or she had to add a composition to the tape, preferably within a couple of days to keep the run a run.

The result can be listened to in various modes. First of all these are ten compositions. The first thing that strikes is the intensity of each piece, which has become a true miniature, that reveals ever more details the more you listen to it.
The margins of non-academic contemporary music have different styles on offer. That is what you also find on Paris Tape Run 2. Each side has a counterpoint. On both sides it is track 4. On side A Dinah Bird interrupts the flow of sometimes alarming sometimes contemplative sound lines, and makes you listen to different rains. It happened to me to do the same after I got up and found out it was raining again: I opened the kitchen window and listened to the rain falling on different leaves. Jassem Hindi on Side B focuses all the attention on a strange message, which, after the floating listening mode, draws you right in again, spellbound.

An other image came to me. I have been to Paris more often. I tried to imagine the area’s I know, while listening, and connected them to the individual songs. For Perrine en Morceaux’s chanson noir (so many beautiful strange things happening in the back ground) I imagined Père Lachaise, without having to enter the graveyard. Xiuhcoatl’s Unabomber brought the soldiers to mind, who, armed with automatic weapons stood in front of the skyscraper of Montparnasse.

The great thing of this tape is that you keep on listening. And then I realised that Paris is also a city of icons. Suddenly I heard Françoise Hardy’s singing behind :SUCH:’s mystery music. The noise of Fusilier and Nox Factio reminded of black and white pictures of French rock’n’roll youth in the early sixties. ‘1968’ as a milestone in modern history, as well as the war in Algeria mingled with their agitated eruptions and screams. Bérangère Maximin’s and Colin Johnco’s haunted mansion revealed what happened behind the dark windows of Serge Gainsbourg’s house in Rue de Verneuil.

The curators of Paris Tape Run 2 bring each side to a worthy end with subtleties that both reflect the secrets and pleasures of living in an apartment somewhere in a great big city, and the dreams that come to visit you when you stare into an endless landscape of roofs and buildings. Both Julie and Anton deserve a big compliment for the choice of artists they brought together. But also for giving the listener the possibility to make up his own image of Paris, or, when walking the streets of this town, to picture the life that goes on behind the windows.

I (Rinus van Alebeek) gave the tape to Steeve Bauras around 19:45 at Limbus Europae, Kienitzer strasse in Berlin. Steeve brought the the tape to Paris. He delivered the cassette to Anton Mobin at Le Miroiterie on April 24th, in the afternoon, at 16:00 during a graffiti exhibition.

Then the run could start for real.
:such: took the tape on May 16th, at 13:00 at Anton’s place, The Maïzing Studio
fusiller on May 23th, near 21:00 in a pub in Belleville’s district
nox factio on June 2nd at 19:00 at Fusiller’s home
Dinahbird on June 24th at 19:00 at Les beaux-arts de Paris
Anton on June 30th at 16:00 in a pub in Barbes’ district

:such:

fusiller

nox factio

dinah bird

anton mobin

anton to Julie : july 4th :: place gambetta paris 20e:: in the street

while Rive Droite artists managed to meet eachother, the Rive Gauche artists had Julie Rousee at their disposal. She travelled around Paris with the tape in her hand bag, reminding me somehow of a young woman during the days of the French Resistance. Here is her run that made the run possible.

Julie to Jade : july 8th :: 15h57 :: les Halles paris 1er :: in a café

Jade to Julie : july 11th :: 22h22 :: Louvre-Rivoli paris 1er:: in the street

julie to Perrine : july 12th :: performing arts forum :: drove out of paris with the tape

Perrine to julie : july 13th :: performing arts forum :: and brought back the tape with me

Julie to Bérangère : july 13th :: Simplon paris 18e ::

Bérangère to Julie : 19th :: Simplon paris 18e ::

Julie to Jassem : july 20th :: Les Gobelins paris 13e ::

Jassem to Julie : august 21rst :: place gambetta paris 20e :: in the street

Rive Gauche

Jade Pattern

Perrine en Morceaux

Maximin Berangère

Jassem Hindi

Julie Rousse

The 27th of January Paris Tape Run2 was presented at Instants Chavirés in Paris. More then one hundred persons were present to see the ten runners perform. It had been years that Instants had seen such a big audience. Read the report on SoundBlog

“… every single copy of these Paris Tape Run tapes is unique & priceless … If only I’d be able to earn some spare money, as a night porter, for example, or even as a drugs runner, God knows I’d buy all of them.”

-Harold Schellinx