Anything But Silence

Received in the mail this week, this rather beautifully designed cassette release from the Italy-based Canadian, His Clancyness (aka Jonathan Clancy).  The limited edition 'Hissometer Cassette' is released on a new Italian/German label, Secret Furry Hole, run by (amongst others) Jukka Reverberi of the popular Italian cinematic post-rock group, Giardini Di Miro. 
It's perhaps not so immediate to see why anyone would want to release music on cassette these days - few people even have a cassette player in the homes anymore and the majority of cars are CD-friendly now.  Surely cassettes are outmoded, bargain bin, unrealiable, fragile?  Well, yes, all of those things but the cassette is also undoubtedly an icon of DIY music culture.  Even in 2009, the cassette can be seen all over contemporary street fashion - from necklaces to ear-rings to t-shirt prints.  It never really went away.  It was just silent. 
Do you remember the first mixtape someone you liked made you?  Did they hand-design the inlay too?  Did you play it over and over again?  Do you still have it?  There's perhaps even more romanticism about cassettes now than there was then much down to our nostalgia for those times. 
Of course, the 'Hissometer Cassette' will not find love with everyone but this appears to be the point.  Secret Furry Hole are aiming at a particular minority - the hardcore fans, the collectors who want something that no-one else has and will cherish it.  I, for one, will probably never even play it.  It's in the owning. 

Secret Furry Hole :

secretfurryhole.blogspot.com/

His Clancyness :

www.myspace.com/hisclancyness