TAPE LABEL

CALEDONIA NORTHERN FOLK STUDIOS is excited to announce that we will be launching a small-press tape label in Fall 202. We’ll specialize in short-run, seasonal editions of regional environmental, soundscape, ambient, incidental, and occasionally, electroacoustic releases, showcasing & amplifying the diverse sonic environments of North-Central Ohio, and the near-beyond. Because of our work’s deep imbrication in place & attention to the reparative politics of place-based work, our tape label will be micro-regionalist in focus: seeking to circulate + create space for conscious listening to the landscapes that already surround us.

We’ve been working in the cassette medium for decades now — in fact, it was Jess’s first format (& she has boxes & boxes of self-composed tapes from the early 1990’s to prove it! — & are excited to help fuel our broader slate of community-based transformative cultural work by translating our personal & installation-based cassette practice into a boutique tape label.

Each year, we’ll aim to record, produce, design & sell a catalogue of four to six original soundscape compositions. While our in-house team (Jess Lamar Reece Holler and Jeff Nagle) will record, compose, & produce the bulk of our releases, we’re also excited to selectively partner with ambitious allied regional soundscape & environmental sound artists & experimental composers towards co-operative releases. Our emphasis will be on carefully-composed, slow-gestating releases; so expect our catalogue to stay small, & our projects to be personal. If you’re an allied environment, ambient, or incidental sound recordist, composer, or produce living or working in the region, please do give us a shout or send us some work if you’d want to partner to put out a release on the CNFS label!!!

Our inaugural release will be an extremely limited-run ambient environmental sound recording composed natively on tapedeck, entirely inside Reece’s Market in downtown Caledonia, Ohio. The proceeds will kickstart our 2021 campaign to purchase & fully renovated Reece’s Market back into an operating small-town grocery store & regional cultural work capacity-builder. Your purchase helps fuel this dream!!!

WHY CASSETTES? Beyond the obvious nostalgia value, cassette tapes are durable, portable, materially palpable, & fun. They reintroduce multimodal design into album concept design; & can be easily played in a variety of settings without bluetooth or WiFi — just add batteries! Best of all, they are the only format that Jess can play in her CR-V!!!

HOW DO I GET A TAPEDECK?! Depending on interest & supply, Caledonia Northern Folk Studios may begin re-selling a select number of vintage tapedecks along with our annual catalogue of ambient + environmental tapes. If so, stock would be limited, one-of-a-kind, & fully tested + described. Watch this space for future details.

100% of proceeds from Caledonia Northern Folk Studio-composed releases, beyond the cost of equipment & materials, will go towards the purchase & restoration of the Temple & Masonic Block Buildings (Reece’s Market) on Caledonia’s Public Square — so buy a weird soundscape tape, & help a good cause!!!