A PATH IS WHERE YOU MAKE IT

RIPPED & DUBBED mixtape #1

3 hours celebrating some favorite experimental, psychedelic, improv, and avant-garde music from 2020. A special focus on music released on limited edition cassette or as Bandcamp digital exclusives, which tend to fall through the cracks on most year-end lists. These are the new sounds that surrounded me in 2020.

A PATH IS WHERE YOU MAKE IT

1. Michael C. Sharp - "Good Deep Down" from Trip Further cassette [Aural Canyon]
2. Grapefruit - "Divine Invasion" from Light Fronds cassette [Moon Glyph]
3. M. Geddes Gengras - "loggerhead" from it seems like all this life was just a dream digital [self-released]
4. Ami Dang - "Ajooni" from Meditations Mixtape, Vol. I [Leaving]
5. Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock - "One" from Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock [Scissor Tail Records]
6. 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band - "I'm Not Trying to Wake Up" from Live at Tubby's [self-released digital; Grapefruit LP via Ba Da Bing]
7. Tambourinen - "The People" from Wooden Flower [Avant-Unity Music cassette; Centripetal Force / Cardinal Fuzz LP]
8. Powers / Rolin Duo - "Ageless Phase" from Powers / Rolin Duo LP [Feeding Tube Records]
9. Tarotplane - "The Feedback Sutras" from The Feedback Sutras LP [VG+ Records]
10. Prana Crafter - "A Path Is Where You Make It" from MorphoMystic LP [Feeding Tube / Cardinal Fuzz]
11. Ron Jons Surf Shop - "Ancient Evenings" from Goop Scoops cassette [C/Site Recordings]
12. Sunwatchers - "The Earthsized Thumb" from Oh Yeah? LP [Trouble In Mind]
13. Rose City Band - "Wildflowers" from Summerlong LP [Thrill Jockey]
14. Tuluum Shimmering - "Bird Song" from Bird Song digital [self-released]
15. Cloudsound - "Eclipsal Uncataclysm" from Tempus of Diminution cassette [Geology Records]
16. Peak Eloquence - "No 2" from The Cancer Ward digital [The Jewel Garden]

INTRODUCING: RIPPED & DUBBED

INTRODUCING: RIPPED & DUBBED

Welcome,

I've been intimately involved in the DIY/underground/experimental/private press music scene for the past fifteen years as a musician, label head, booker, promoter, and DJ. During the entire time I have participated in this intentionally clandestine music community, aspects of traditional or vintage recording techniques and media have bumped up against new digital trends in the creation, dissemination, archiving, and promotion of music, preserving analog methods inside a ever-unfolding Now scroll. The relationship has been mutually beneficial in some ways--new vinyl editions of long out-of-print, impossible-to-find titles being rolled out after racking up plays through YouTube's autoplay algorithm; free and widely available online digital archives of every Dead audience tape in existence; the ability to fully preview and easily order the latest cassette from your favorite micro-label on Bandcamp--yet the ultimate dominance of digital and its flood of listening possibilities amongst even the most obscure subgenres has meant that many works possibly worthy of larger canonization are being ignored or forgotten. Worse, the brutality of this unceasing ephemeral update is apparent in the scope of what we've lost along the way: As the mid-aughts MySpace and BlogSpot pages for home-burned CD-R and deluxe 180g vinyl pressings gave way in the 20-teens to a preference for pro-dubbed cassettes and Bandcamp, we've witnessed countless bands, labels, music mailorders, and digital publications focused on the experimental edge of independent music vanish into the ether, leaving a ghost-print in broken Mediafire links or Wayback Machine caches - an entire half-generation of writers and musicians remembered only by hazy memory and the few souls who saved back-issues of the Wire or held on to their Boa Melody Bar hauls. Just a fraction of the groundbreaking experimental music released on CD-R, cassette, and lathe-cut record in tiny editions (usually 50 copies or less) has made the leap to digital streaming, yet this work is no less valid due to its relative obscurity or rarity (I envision Light in the Attic-style box sets sparking a full-on revival in the coming decades).

A comprehensive account of the greatest hits and most lasting echoes of 21st century underground music would require the participation of many; through Ripped & Dubbed's audio essays, mixes, and interviews, I am beginning the work of pitching in my perspective of this slippery scene. 

I'm launching Ripped & Dubbed with a three-part digital mixtape series hosted on the Flower Room Mixcloud, focusing on new music from 2020 that carries forward the spirit of experimentalism and musical ingenuity into the present day. Join me here for fully-linked liner notes on all mixes and podcast episodes, as well as additional essays, interviews, and musings on the contemporary underground. 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for listening. I'm looking forward to hanging out.

Matt LaJoie