I have boxes full of cassette tapes that I can’t bring myself to throw out. Many have a sentimental value such as the numerous mix tapes lovingly compiled from John Peel radio shows. I justify my hoarding by reasoning that they contain rare session tracks or other obscurities that can’t easily be found anywhere else.
I doubt this coillection has any broad appeal but they take me back to days when sounds were not available at the click of a mouse.
I have a feeling Norwegian composer and performer Stina Stjern would understand this obsession and also have plenty of creative uses for this untidy archive.
Stjern is clearly a woman with a soft spot for analogue imperfections from a pre-digital age. She uses old cassette tape recorders, Walkmans, effects, found sounds, synth, and vocals to produce a curious ambient jumble.
The video to The Wild Woman Archetype gives an idea of how she put together the twelve tracks on this album. You see her loading cassettes into Walkman players which are individually wired up to a mixing board.
The result of the looping, layering and cut-ups often sounds like communication from another planet. There are no discernible beats and any melodies seem accidental. Spontaneous Deep Dive even ends with a recording of bird song.
Stjern likens the hands-on approach to letter writing with pen and ink. Hers is a sonic manuscript.
The press release states that ”Vivid Peace Restored functions as a meditation, a state of mind, a sonic healing in a world that she says often feels too brutal and unforgiving.”
Since meditation is usually associated with restful sounds from nature, drones or other repetitive rhythms I sincerely doubt that Stjern’s experimental soundscapes are ideally adapted for this transendental purpose.
The noise she makes does, however, have an eerie charm that is on a similar wavelength to the abstract experimentation of Grouper, Delia Derbyshire, Broadcast or Ghost Box.
For me, the perverse logic behind this singular mix tape makes weird sense in to our mixed-up world.
