Early 2021 I was living at my parent's house having graduated smack into the pandemic. For the better part of 2 years I spent most of my time wandering the North Shore, averaging 2 movies a day, hanging out with my sister and whatever friends she brought over. Somewhere amidst all of this I found the time to cultivate an obsession with pop music. I was determined to figure out what the best pop song ever made was. This journey led me through and over the skies of artists like Prefab Sprout, Charli XCX, The Beach Boys, Weezer, Madonna, etc. More so I found myself gravitating towards the sounds of Guided By Voices, The Apples in Stereo, and Ween.

A friend of my dad's was stopping by the house and checking out the basement I had populated to be a studio since my teenage years. We were discussing some of the pedals I was looking to let go of and he mentioned that he had an old 4-track cassette machine that he never used anymore. He was shocked I was even interested. He definitely got a sore deal in the trade. That fall while reverse engineering heartbreak I finally started making my first cassette recordings.

My biggest shock as a growing tape obsessive has been how little curation there is surrounding all of this. There is so much great music that has been created in this way and yet I wasn't able to find much outside of a few blog posts naming the typical few (Nebraska, one Bob Dylan album maybe, parts of Mellow Gold, etc). Though I have attempted to remedy this in more informal ways this is my first venture into a proper curation of cassette music being made by current and active artists.

Truthfully I conceived of this compilation at a time when I desperately needed a sense of community. I am endlessly grateful for everyone who is involved. I'm at a point that I never could have imagined reaching just a few months ago. Just the other day my Tascam 414 finally breathed it's last. I've just put in an order for an 8-track. There's something beautiful about this and I know everyone here feels it. I'm planning on doing many more. If you're a fellow cassette recordist who's interested in contributing definitely reach out. Enjoy.
- Harmony <3