Down the Wormhole 11
A good deal, excellent criticism, cassette lore and more
Hello! Welcome to the Wormhole, a post of Deep Voices recommendations, observations, meditations, hesitations, celebrations, and reverberations only for paying subscribers. Speaking of paying, Deep Voices is now cheaper. For access to twice as much Deep Voices intel, consider a monthy subscription for the price of a cup of coffee. This week: Awesome Tapes From Africa lore, a great deal on a perfect vintage music poster, an excellent Surinamese-Dutch electronic music primer, and a Deep Voices-esque music review from 1983.
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Twenty years ago my friend Brian and I moved into a basement apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Metropolitan Ave, which is the primary truck route between the BQE and the warehouses of East Williamsburg and Bushwick, and so the apartment would constantly rattle, knocking dust and debris loose from the ceiling, which would fall on his bed, his drum set, and his endless boxes of African cassette tapes. He’d recently returned from a year living in Ghana and, as he acclimated to New York, while working a day job as a publicist for the likes of Peter Frampton and Philip Glass, he set up a blog from his bedroom, which he coined Awesome Tapes From Africa.
I remain proud to have played a small part in the birth of Awesome Tapes that year. Brian’s bedroom was closest to the front of the apartment, and much louder, and he understandably moved out after a year. We remained close, though. He stayed in New York for a while, working on Awesomes Tapes, until he somewhat accidentally became a cassette DJ and, while traveling, met his now-wife in Germany, where he settled.
After years of DJing and running the Awesome Tapes From Africa record label, Brian opened an Awesome Tapes From Africa storefront in Berlin. As someone who has had direct access to Brian’s knowledge and physical archives, I highlyrecommend you stop in, browse. Brian’s set up a part of his cassette collection in