Parlour Tapes+
Those of us who live here know that Chicago is abuzz with sounds—and not just the wailing of police sirens and the thrumming of train tracks and the hiss of surf on sand—but the sounds of horsehair across cello strings and of felt hammers patting piano wire. The city vibrates with the voices of its makers of music—composers, performers, improvisers, programmers, instrument-builders—and Parlour Tapes+ aims to capture these rustlings, large and small, on eighth-inch oxide-coated magnetic tape.
Yes, tape. Cassette tape.* We are, per our name, a new music cassette tape label. We are also, per our growing interests, a media and performance collective that mounts unlikely concert-happenings. We are also-also a group of performing, composing, improvising rug-cutters who create and realize new work ourselves.
We aim to fuel creative thought in our field with stimulating, encouraging, and at times completely over-the-top projects to nurture the earnest and unbridled fulfillment of artistic desire. We are as likely to mount heartbreaking and intimate concert-concerts (looking at you, Spektral Quartet) as we are to fabricate a Clue-esque musical murder mystery (what would the world do without David Skidmore?) or stage a fake job fair and completely benign brainwashing initiative nested in the perfectly unassuming shell of the contemporary concert.