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When mixtapes first appeared in the West, they were designed to gather a wide range of tracks (illegally) in order they be resold to fleeting, usually anonymous customers. Two of the more popular places for these surreptitious transactions in the 1970s were urban marketplaces and highway cafes. The mixtape, in other words, both collected material from various - unrelated - sources and then distributed it even further afield. Mixtapes operated as a kind of springboard, far from the orderly patterns of official commerce. Trajectories could be cast in any direction and tracklists could be redesigned, given a few minutes and some wires.
According to the workings of both enthusiasm and possible profit, those bootleg collections were born into networks of constant motion, especially as the original tapes would then be used to make other cassettes. The more frequent the copying, the more the sound quality would suffer. Heartfelt activity had a direct, audible effect on the world. Affection had a warm and fuzzy feel. Due to these patterns and practices, mixtapes have enjoyed a very different status to, say, vinyl box sets, themselves a form of aggregation.
The emergence of hip-hop, however, would lead to a slightly different interpretation of any "mixing" involved. Not only were tracks collected and distributed on cassette; they were also reinterpreted. Put differently, songs were not just segued - they were manipulated and mishandled. New compositions were born from old.
The physical passage(s) of those hip-hop compilations and remixed/ reconsidered playlists occurred less often at truckstops or bohemian markets; instead partygoers became the vehicle of choice. Here, as a result, the role of profit was reduced. Enjoyment and enthusiasm were more important in the movement of songs between impoverished enthusiasts; tapes moved between friends, not customers.
Lo-fi C60 tapes were an ideal media platform, being cheap, eminently portable, open to amateurish intrusion, and only designed for a short lifespan - should editorial zeal cause too much damage. Nonetheless, for example by the 1980s, the tape culture of rock music had developed a contrary, somewhat elitist function. Rare bootleg recordings of live shows were exchanged for considerable sums - and then treasured in quiet places. The aloofness of prog rock adopted commercial forms, too.
The beauty of a beat tape lies in the incomplete
A new release by Moscow beatmaker Dza (Sasha Kholenko, through Error Broadcast) avoids any such pretensions towards status or stasis. He has just published a nineteen-track compilation built entirely from mixes of his own, late-2010 album, "Five-Finger Discount." Given Mr. Kholenko's background, the likelihood of snobbery seems small: "I got my first PC when I was six or seven. Before that I had a domestic computer with games on tape. I played a lot of games on the PC, too, like those old LucasArts adventures. And of course there were the beat’em-ups on the Sega MegaDrive - like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter."
Mashups began with punch-ups.
Although the "Five-Finger" compositions are available in digital formats, they can also be obtained on cassette. Both versions are accompanied by the following English quote - which enjoys popularity in various locations online. The following lines strike a chord in many places.
First and foremost, any general talk of mixtapes becomes, more specifically, that of a beat tape: "For the producer, a beat tape functions like a black book for the graffiti artist. He both develops his skills and ventures into unknown artistic territory, too. Like a 'beat juggler,' perhaps, he compiles ideas, drafts, and loops. Do not expect fully-fledged songs, though. The beauty of a beat tape lies in the incomplete."
A media format associated with fleeting ideas and far-flung locations continues in a well-established vein. Its incomplete fragments speak to enduring promise - and therefore to various freedoms.
A beat tape functions like a black book for the graffiti artist
When "Five-Finger Discount" was published last year, the folks at Error Broadcast were already keen to play upon this cultural aura of affordable novelty, happy amateurism, and risky transition(s). The celebration of a kinetic art form was clearest whenever connections were drawn between the style of Dza's graphic work and the music. As we can see from our top photograph, the B&W motif used both for the original album cover and the remixes has been a dog's head, flashing past us with such speed and fury that all clarity is lost. A blur of motion is all that remains.
And so, in that same register, we heard: "Dza's music reflects his graphic identity [and vice versa]. Everything is quick, dirty, and raw. His beat tape 'Five-Finger Discount' hijacks you, even. You're thrown into his kinderzimmer - where sticker-covered EFX pedals pay homage to the MPC and Dza himself gets lost behind the screen of a MacBook. This tape has plenty of textures; it contains finely-detailed beats and some heavy bangers, too."
We now have the remixes, which - as our audio selection shows - include many familiar faces from FFM: Demokracy, Mujuice, Miracle Libido, Pixelord, Appleyard, plus Lithuania's Vaiper Despotin. In the spirit of '80s - or early '90s - amateurism, the new cassette copies also come with some exclusive stickers; the whole affair, though, is being published in very limited numbers. That small print- or tape run speaks to a treasured memory. A related image, just uploaded by Krasnoyarsk's Appleyard (Sergei Demin), suggests that the desire to chop, dice, and deface has not lessened over the years.
Dza, working along the same vigorous lines, said himself in a recent interview that the early '90s had enjoyed a certain "romance and mystery" - before the web appeared. Nothing was possible without physical contact or, according to the same logic, friendship. Mix- and beat tapes return us to those times. They're made for friends - and travel within the same affectionate circles, too.
Before the internet, musicians were like gods. You couldn’t just send an email
Interestingly enough, when Dza played with Mujuice in the earlier project Cut2Kill, the duo tried - in a semi-serious manner - to create a "revival of old ['90s] rave music," full of nods in the direction of The Prodigy. Cut2Kill were turned down by the Red Bull Academy in 2008 - but its members were accepted a little later, once they were playing as solo artists. These kinds of nostalgia for the early 90s' squat- or rave culture (i.e., for overtly physical, social spheres) appear to have greater, longer relevance on Slavic soil. Fashion may have moved on, but certain modes of interaction are fondly remembered and reworked.
With only one hundred copies of the "Five-Finger" remixes available on tape, requests for inclusion will be numerous. Dza prepares for the crush.
Dza (left, in hoodie) and Miracle Libido (Artem Ryazanov, green logo t-shirt)
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