Since the height of blogs and MySpace in the early 2000s, music journalism has frequently arrived accompanied by on-demand audio. In earlier times, magazines would bundle a CD sampler with each issue, as exemplified by CMJ New Music Monthly. And even prior to that, there existed TELLUS.
The trailblazing audio cassette magazine originated from the same vibrant Lower Manhattan scene that contemporary artists—from Madonna to Nirosta Steel—have since revisited, though it emphasized the city’s more elusive outputs at the time. “I would say it sprang from and feeds into non-conformity,” recalls co-founder Joseph Nechvatal. “This is music and art that has no place in the popular market.” His fellow co-founder, Carol Parkinson, adds, “We simply wanted an alternative. And we knew there were other people out there who wanted an alternative.”
Launched in 1983 by Nechvatal, Parkinson, and Claudia Gould, TELLUS captured the gritty, forward-looking sounds of Lower Manhattan, commissioning and publishing fresh works by musicians, composers, visual artists, poets, writers, choreographers, and performers from the area — all presented as an audio cassette. It stands as a captivating time capsule of a era when no wave, hip-hop, industrial, pop, and many more genres collided within the city.
That legacy is being preserved through the forthcoming vinyl reissue TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology, Vol. 1. Set for release in November via Earth Libraries, the 30-track collection features contributions from Sonic Youth, Liquid Liquid, Cargo Cult, Live Skull, James Tenney, George Brecht, Takehisa Kosugi, Carol Parkinson, Y Pants, and others. The records have been remastered from the original cassette masters and come packaged with archival photographs and new liner notes by Thurston Moore.
Below, you can listen to the compilation’s opening track, Cargo Cult’s “Plaid City,” and view the full tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 Cargo Cult — “Plaid City”
02 The Scene Is Now — “Bugged, Wigged Out”
03 Y Pants — “Magnetic Attraction”
04 Liquid Liquid — “Groove To Go”
05 John Fekner City Squad — “2-4-5-7-9-11”
06 Carol Parkinson — “Heavybeat”
07 Sonic Youth — “Scream”
08 Patrick McGrath — “Spike Rising”
09 Bond Bergland — “Moonlight Ride”
10 Remko Scha — “Katadeedo Daynatadoh”
11 Paul Dresher — “Pygmy Vocal Music”
12 George Brecht — “Comb Music (Comb Event)”
13 Live Skull — “Pulverized By Gratitude”
14 Bruce Tovsky — “Field”
15 Brenda Hutchinson — “Wordplay”
16 Gregory Whitehead — “Eva Can I Stab Bats In A Cave”
17 David Linton — “Ringo”
18 David Rosenbloom — “Flowers”
19 Saurekeller — “Hiroshima”
20 Jim Farmer — “You Look Lovely In The Moonlight”
21 Chain Gang — “Night Plantation”
22 Angela Babin & Joe Dizney — “Work Song”
23 Lenny Pickett — “Dance Music For 4 Saxophones #3”
24 Anita Feldman And Michael Kowalski — “Riffle”
25 Tron Von Hollywood — “After Shakespeare” (Feat. Raina Jane Sherry)
26 Bite Like A Kitty — Excerpt from “Same Way”
27 Ron Kuivala — “Tl Intends (to enforce its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent permitted by law)”
28 James Tenney — “Septet For Electric Guitars”
29 Shelley Hirsch — “#39”
30 Takehisa Kosugi — “Paraphrases (Excerpt)”
TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine Anthology, Vol. 1 is out 11/20 via Earth Libraries. Pre-order it here.
