We interviewed John Cale in issue #156 around the time of his previous release, Mercy. He has just released POPtical Illusion, a collection of synth and keyboard heavy tunes that carry a heavy, and at times angry message about the state of the world. That is not to say that that Cale has lost all hope and there is optimism that we can still bring about change. POPtical Illusion was produced by Cale along with longtime artistic collaborator Nita Scott.
Bass player Herbie Flowers had a front row seat for some of the most iconic recordings of the late sixties and seventies. He played on a staggering number of classic albums from artists such as David Bowie, Elton John, George Harrison, Harry...
by Alex Maiolo
One of our patron saints of recording, Mitch Easter [Tape Op #21], turns 70 today. That's almost irrelevant, as this treasure of a human should be celebrated every day, but it prompted me to write about his impact.
Like anyone,...
In the never-ending, century-old battle between corporations and content producers: I give you the latest bit of pro-artist activism. This is taken directly from the Grammy Foundation's website:
Tell Congress to Save Music and Stop the "Pandora...
In editor Larry Crane's recent End Rant [Tape Op #127], he talked about how people are currently learning recording techniques, all of the misinformation on the internet, and how this leads to the homogenization of music making in general. All of the...
Now that the Tape Op iPad app is available, we've been trying to figure out the best ways to get the magazine to other digital formats. Expansion to other full-fledged tablets (Android, etc) is a fairly straightforward - if laborious - process, in...
I’m normally not that into live albums, but Nils Frahm is not a normal musician. I saw him play live in 2018 when I interviewed him for Tape Op, and it was hard to believe that he was the only musician on stage. Blending electronic elements...
Last week Cycling 74 released the tremendous version 6 update to Max/MSP, their flagship multimedia programming platform, which provides an appealingly artistic interface into audio, MIDI, and video focused logic at a nonetheless ...
A few years ago a Northwest music mag (now defunct) interviewed some Portland "best new band" character and the moron spouted out that nothing had been going on in Portland before his band moved to town - that this was the turning point when...
by Larry Crane
In 1996 my life changed. A few years earlier, I had been in a busy band (Vomit Launch, a precursor to what became indie rock) putting out albums and touring for almost eight years. In late 1992 we called it quits. I’d moved...