Animal Collective, Bon Iver and Guided By Voices are among the latest acts to have offered up special releases for the inaugural International Cassette Store Day, which takes place on September 7th.
Aiming to highlight the virtues of the cassette format in a similar fashion to Record Store Day’s promotion of vinyl, the new initiative has already seen labels including SEXBEAT, Kissability and Suplex Cassettes lend their support, and bands such as At The Drive-In, Pulled Apart By Horses, The Flaming Lips and Deerhunter have all agreed to re-release albums on tape.
Organisers describe the day’s events as ‘a celebration of a physical product that is accessible, fun, cheap and still going strong in the turbulent current musical climate’, while Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie remarks:
“Music sounds great on cassette I have a big collection of original albums on cassette from artists like Dylan , The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, MC5 & Suicide. I also have great compilation tapes I made to play on Primal Scream tours. Cassette is a cool medium to listen to music on. Warm and fat. Good bottom end.”
The Rough Trade East venue in London will host live bands and DJs on September 7th to coincide with Cassette Store Day. Similar events are planned for Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo.