Review of Angelo Bignamini’s C40 – Anna

Ed Pinsent writes in The Sound Projector: “every moment is somehow charged with a strange glow of significance, <…> a charming and slightly dreamlike snapshot, or a series of snapshots, results.”

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Rinus van Alebeek -Autoritratto con melagrana

Sounds from a collection of tapes, found or with own recordings, put together in an audiocollage with the use of multiple cassette players.

Dai Coelacanth – Christmas is ruined

A melodrama and a classic tearjerker, follow Dai Coelacanth’s new tales of lost souls on a foreign planet.

video and review of Angelo Bignamini’s Anna

bazedjunkiii in Hamburg showed and opened the packet I sent him in front of the camera. I added two passenger tapes that were produced by Geert-Jan Hobijn, the founding father of staalplaat. I offered the free ride because sending one or three tapes makes no difference to the shipping costs.

baze-djunkiii also wrote a review of the tape:

Incoming via mail from Berlin only recently is Angelo Bignamini’s “Anna”, the most recent musical outing put on the circuit via the legendary Staaltape-label which saw its very first release all the way back in 1982. Issued on re-used, and therefore sustainable, commercial cassette tapes with a hand-crafted collage cover the eight tracks on this album were composed over a course of six months from February to August 2k21 and are conceptually covering the changes in the life and the surroundings of the Italian composer. “Anna” starts out on a slightly wobbly, dreamy solo piano tip, drifts further into realms of wonky tape manipulation sequences, cut-up Field Recordings and Plunderphonics as well as various collage and layering techniques, droning, extended and surely melancholia-inducing string sequences alongside what seems to be a close up recording of swarming insects – bees, probably -, eerie Industrial soundscapes with a well score’esque quality at the beginning of the B-side whilst surprisingly even turning towards home-recorded singer-songwriter dabblings reminiscent of the legendary Augsburg-based label Dhyana Records for a mere few seconds before diving into crackly, kitsch-dripping outtakes from Classical recordings and recorded tape machine vocals of unknown origin, all accompanied well by the slightly worn out nature of the previously used tape material. One for avid collectors of FoundSounds, lo-fi recordings and the mediums that come with them.

you can still order the tape here

The Cuckoo Edition

In the year 2013 all titles will become available as a bare cassette in a strange case. No information, except for the cassette title, will be added. The releases will pretty much look like those in the picture below. (Please Note, that Staaltape will continue to release new works in handmade packages and art work, plus full info!)

The cassettes can only be bought on demand. See for a complete list of releases this page. Each cassette will cost 4,50 euro (ex shipping). This is your chance to get the rare (you can kill a pig in july, poem) or the since long sold out (Berlin Tape Run1, Paris Tape Run1).

Information staaltape at staalplaat dot com

D I K T A T in the New World of Love

September 26th – October 3rd 2012, D I K T A T performed – inside/outside – in Allentown, Washington & New York, meanwhile recording material for a limited edition documentary pocket tape audiozine cassette-only release on STAALTAPE.

credits
released 10 August 2012
Jean Bordé (double bass), Emmanuel Rébus (dictaphones), Rinus van Alebeek (dictaphones), Harold Schellinx (dictaphones).

Out Now: Groetjes uit Brussel

Page with Full Information

“When I heard the result of Groetjes uit Brussel, I sensed that it was very close to the concept of an AudioZine. What you hear on this tape is an ever-changing tale not only of four people who live in the same city, but also a collective work of art that documents a part of their lives . All four of them have managed to visualize a Brussels through their miniatures. If you follow the storyline, you will encounter a narrator, who is not always aware of the dreams and visions that surround him. Maybe he or she can hear them, intuit them, just as much as the listener to this tape can perceive what it is to live in Brussels at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century.”

Au Coeur de la Nuit- Review of Four Corners of the Night

“De ces lieux émerge une poésie constante, chaque approche conserve son style, le résultat au final donne une intranquillité surprenante, la bande analogique aidant bien les manipulations, renversements, retournements.”

“And even if the snow is only the one of some old radio left turned on, programs are over for a long time now, objects took control over our sleepy world.”

Read the complete review by Flavien Gillié on The Field Reporter. I just had to add a comment, to explain why there is no digital files available alongside with the releases by Staaltape.

Full information on Four Corners of the Night

Now in Production – Pocket Tape

Carry your favourite cassette with you in this smart Pocket Tape. Knitted from the magnetic tape of no more usable cassettes, this handy little chain armour like Pocket Tape finally dusts off the nostalgic patina. Order now for only 20.00 euro: staaltape at staalplaat dot com or wait for the next very special edition!

Tales for Tapes #7 – The British Library Edition

The British Library has bought the first nineteen releases, issued by staaltape since 2010. The cassettes will become part of the permanent collection of sound art, poetry and music. The sounds on the tapes won’t come available for download or on-line listening. If you want to see, touch and hear each single release you have to go there.

The seven copies of the first regular Tales for Tapes #7 were no longer available. After a special edition for Anton Mobin, the initiator of the TfT-concert series, I decided to make an exclusive edition for the British Library.

It was send without The Flag.

Collectors who are interested in acquiring a complete TfT#7-edition in an exclusive and unique package should write to staaltape at staalplaat dot com

Price is 7 x 7€ plus 3.45€ for shipping worldwide.

( Total 52,45€ )