walking dogs

The InFestDC mixtape showcases 22 of the top live tracks from some of DC's best rising bands, but in case that wasn't enough, I've got a pleasant surprise in store for you. Thanks to Radio CPR, I've now got the chance to share even more audio archives from the city's underground show scene. Check out the first ever broadcast In Yr Basement Radio below for some great B-sides that didn't make the compilation, and don't miss next week's episode on Wednesday, May 13 from 6-7pm ET on 101.7FM in Mt. Pleasant or online here.

Many thanks to Ad Hoc, Washington City Paper, and DC Music Download for their coverage of the InFestDC mixtape, and to Decoder Magazine and DCist for their praises:

"The whole collection is a thrashing but articulate window into the various communities the Fest, and DZ Tapes itself, knit together through their projects." - Decoder Magazine 

"Combining live music with a sense of community organizing and charity are the perfect trio to describe ... the personality of D.C.’s own cultural history" - DCist

Up next on the live event front is the next Escape From DC Brunch show at Hole In The Sky this Sunday, May 10 featuring the public debut of a new project with members of Two Inch Astronaut and Young Rapids called Sloganeers, alongside Chris Taylor in The Creature People and HITS resident guitar wizard Justin Zami (click flyer for details).

In case you missed the last show, we captured the first ever performance by Green God here on VHS for your viewing pleasure:

In other DZ show news, Big Hush take the stage with Beach Fossils and Den-Mate at the Rock & Roll Hotel on Thursday, May 14 (click here for details).

Lastly, the yearly Nelsonville Music Festival in Nelsonville, OH will be taking place May 28-31 and will be hosting some spectacularly talented musicians, including DZ alum Adam Torres. Other acts along for the fun include The Flaming Lips, St. Vincent, Ryley Walker, Michael Hurley, and more.

Before signing off, I wanted to send my gratitude to the Baltimore City Paper for their graciously in-depth review of the Romantic States release, calling it "a seductive, cohesive whole [that] isn't merely impressive, it's quite often hypnotic," and to DC Music Download for including me in their recent piece on Record Store Day.

Until next time, stay sound...

it rains

DZ alum It Is Rain In My Face. has his sophomore full-length all but finished and Mat has bestowed upon the masses a sneak peak for our listening pleasure. Debuted earlier this week on Ad Hoc, "Raise Your Hands, Raise The Dead" is a stellar track, "brought to life with coiled riffs and frenetic yet melodic chanting," that will surely help you warm up to winter's glacial numbing with its hypnotically soothing resonance. "The Framer" will be available from Chill Mega Chill, who has been on fire with recent releases from friends of the label Born Gold and Orca Life. Check out the single below and look out for the new album dropping November 19.

Cassette Store Day

Today is the first ever Cassette Store Day, and while the debate remains open as to whether this will be good or bad for the format and the industry, I'm finding it hard to contain my excitement. Stores from around the world will be releasing exclusive tapes from favorites like Deerhunter, Spectrals, Animal Collective, Teen Suicide, Gold Panda, and many others.

To celebrate, all downloads and merch in the DZ store will be marked off 20% this weekend by using the code "CSD" at checkout. And when your eyeballs have a free moment, take a look at these quick reads discussing some of the pros and cons of this new musical holiday.

I also want to thank the dudes at Tabs Out and Ad Hoc for the kind words on DYVNZMBR2, saying it "runs the gamut of electronic music, from glitched-out beats to feedback-laden buzzsaw drones and lo-fi downtempo hazers. It’s like a huge sandwich that’s too big to get your mouth around so you gotta take it home and cut it up cause you and I both know if you even try it, that shit's falling out of the bread and landing in your lap."

Tomorrow Comes Today

It's been a long time coming but the latest DZ TAPES full-length release is out now, showcasing San Jose producer Justin Morales, better known as Seabright. "Tomorrow" features Justin conjuring up a blend of psychedelic pop music for digital dreams by fusing flourishing laptop production with multi-layered live analog manipulation. Many of the tracks are built on a foundation of layered guitars, looped vocals and harmonized synthesizers, then melded together with a collection of samples and noise to construct a brisk and revitalizing soundtrack for a serene summer day surfing circuits both inside and outside.

The album was premiered yesterday on Decoder and is now available for download. A limited run of 50 cassettes will start shipping later this month and can be ordered here.

"The shoegaze-pop jams of San Jose dreamer Justin Morales are just perfect for the mid-summer blues, when it’s almost too hot to go outside but much too pretty to stay inside. With 'Tomorrow' on the horizon we can slip into a cool, refreshing sound that turns sweat to lemonade and stings the eyes slightly before quenching the tongue." - Decoder

 

One more shout out goes to our friends at Ad Hoc for their write-up of the music video for It Is Rain In My Face.'s "Duck In A Row", which they say "offers a visual exploration of the rhythms and ambience dictated by the song, using rhythmic editing and a color palette lush with green. Delving into both artistic manipulation of perspective and our physical manipulation of the world-- or in this case, of snow-- the video is a cerebral backdrop for Jones' experimental pop."

Up(2)date

The latest releases for Pool Holograph and Birkwin Jersey have both received some very nice accolades from the folks at Ad Hoc, The FADER, I Found Music, Neighborhood Tapes, Obscure Sound, Portals, and This Is Fake DIY, and Weed Temple.

This past month has been much busier than expected at DZ HQ, but things are finally getting caught up to where they should be. All orders have been shipped out, my thanks go out to everyone for your patience. Being the only one running the show here, things can bottleneck fairly quickly if there's even a slight delay, so I appreciate you all bearing with me. The tapes all look and sound really good, so if you haven't ordered yours yet there's no better time than the present!

In other news, two additional releases are currently in the works and should be ready for release in the spring! Stay tuned for further details. :)

Press

DZ06 has been receiving great praise since it's release late last month. Check out what some of our favorite publications have been saying, and check out the album for free on bandcamp.

DZ Tapes recently released what may very well be my favorite album of the year, It Is Rain In My Face.'s self-titled LP - Portals & verb/re/verb

Jones rises to new challenges as a songwriter while fleshing out the charming vibe of his previous work. - Ad Hoc

Mat has cultivated the captivating interplay of vocals and production that he so expertly balanced on 'Small Prayer', made more textural and dynamic by the use of live instrumentation in determining the direction of songs on his self-titled debut full length. - Decoder Magazine 

With this self-titled release, It Is Rain In My Face. develops a musical vocabulary that includes soul, chillwave, folk, and electronica, and synthesizes it into a singular product that, with any luck, will live on in the public consciousness. - In Your Speakers

This stuff is really listenable and good for any hangout session. - Cassette Gods Reviews

The DZ TAPES cassette giveaway is coming to an end. For your chance to win a free cassette combo package, just head to the DZ TAPES Facebook page, click the  button, and post your favorite album from 2012 to be entered for a chance to win. In closing, thanks to Mondo Nation for the nice long-distance chat.

Fighter Pilot In A War

Our friends over at Ad Hoc were kind enough to premiere the next single "Fighter Pilot In A War" from the upcoming It Is Rain In My Face. release, due out next week on August 21.

If you're in Washington, DC this weekend we'll be putting on a cassette release showcase  at the Dougout featuring the likes of Pressed And and Romantic States; click the awesome screenprint by Sean Berg below for details.

Ad-Hoc

I'm proud to announce DZ TAPES as a supporting faction in the new Kickstarter for Ad Hoc, a 100% independent, daily music and visual culture publication from former Altered Zones editors Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander, some of our favorite music bloggers, and active imaginations from all across our global grassroots community.

Bring music back to the community. Help us build our new home.

Following a solid run as the editors of Pitchfork experimental sister site Altered Zones, Emilie Friedlander and Ric Leichtung are back with Ad Hoc, an underground music and visual culture publication created for and by a community of music lovers with a shared ethos: that of building the world you want to see using the materials at your disposal. A collective of ten tastemaking music blogs from all over the world, Ad Hoc is a daily destination for MP3s, videos, mixes, interviews, artist's writings, and cultural commentary-- curated for quality, and with an emphasis on emerging artists and musical movements that best exemplify the new grassroots, Internet-fueled DIY.

Ad Hoc is also a quarterly zine-- available in electronic and paper formats, and full of original art work and long-form features. Resurrecting the curatorial logic of zine culture, Ad Hoc will paint a dynamic, living landscape of the underground music world at large, setting the reflections of professional journalists and critics alongside artists, promoters, and other music-world personalities. Ad Hoc is a mosaic of voices, each offering its own partial illumination of underground music today, and what it means to navigate a rapidly changing industry in the era of information.

Ad Hoc features regular contributions from 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Brighton, UK), Decoder (Ex-Get Off The Coast; Oakland, CA & Wilmington, NC), Distonal (Ex-The Decibel Tolls; Louisville, KY), Dummy Magazine (London), International Tapes (Brooklyn, Tel Aviv, Dublin, San Jose, Berlin, Beijing), Mutant Sounds (Dallas, TX), No Fear of Pop (Berlin), Visitation Rites (Brooklyn & Los Angeles), Raven Sings The Blues (Queens, NY), and Rose Quartz (Auckland, NZ & Sydney, AUS).

And writings from Alex Bleeker (Real Estate), Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches), Alan Palomo (Neon Indian), Allese Baker (Artforum), Dale W. Eisinger (New York Press), Dan Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never, Ford & Lopatin), Emil Amos (Holy Sons, Om), Emily Rose Epstien (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin), Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy), Ian Nelson (Friendship Bracelet), James Leyland Kirby (The Caretaker), Jenn Pelly (Pitchfork, Village Voice), Jessa Farkas (Future Shuttle), Jigmae Baer (Royal Baths), Justin Spicer (Tiny Mix Tapes), Kim Kelly (NPR, Brooklyn Vegan), Liz Pelly (Boston Phoenix), Marc Masters (Pitchfork, Wire), Maria Minerva, Matt Sullivan (Altered Zones, Impose), Michael McGregor (Chocolate Bobka, The Report), Laurel Chartow, Taraka Larson (Prince Rama), Todd P, and many, many more.

Dozens of artists have already stood up and shown their support by pledging previously unreleased tracks to the Kickstarter compilation, available both as a digital download and in the form of a tripped-out cassette box set.

Featuring Air Waves, Amen Dunes, Anenon, Balam Acab, Beach Fossils, Big Troubles, Blondes, The Caretaker, Charlatan (Brad Rose), Co La, Dan Lopatin, Ducktails, Forest Swords, FORMA, Future Shuttle, Games/Ford & Lopatin, Gary War, Greatest Hits, Grimes with Majical Cloudz, How To Dress Well, Hubble, James Ferraro, JEFF the Brotherhood, Jürgen Müller, Julia Holter, Julian Lynch, Keep Shelly in Athens, Keith Fullerton Whitman, La Big Vic, Laurel Halo, Maria Minerva, Matthewdavid, Pete Swanson, Pictureplane, Pure X, Radio People, Rangers, Rene Hell, Rhys Chatham, Run DMT, Sleep ∞ Over, Silent Diane, Sun Araw, Stellar Om Source, Tonstartssbandht, Twerps, White Car, Widowspeak, Woodsman, and Young Prisms.

Over 50 of our favorite labels in the world right now have also chipped in bundles, including:

100% Silk, 4AD, Acephale, Arbutus, Atelier Ciseaux, Bathetic, Captured Tracks, Carpark Records, Complicated Dance Steps, De Stijl Records, Digitalis Industries, Domino Records, DZ Tapes, Editions Mego, Escho, Experimedia, Fat Cat, Firetalk Records, Fixed Identity, Friends Records, Future Times, Goner, Group Tightener, Hands in the Dark, Hardly Art, Hippos In Tanks, Hoss Records, Illegal Art, Important Records, JagJaguwar, La Station Radar, Leaving Records, Lefse Records, Light Lodge, Living Tapes, Maman Records, Moon Glyph, Night People, New Images, NNA Tapes, No Pain in Pop, No Quarter, Not Not Fun, Northern Spy, Partisan, Paw Tracks, People's Potential Unlimited, R&S Records, RVNG Intl., Sacred Bones, Secretly Canadian, Slumberland Records, Small Plates Records, Software Records, Sun Ark, Thrill Jockey, Tri Angle, True Panther, Type Records, Underwater Peoples, Upset The Rhythm, UUU Tapes, Warp, Woodsist, XL, Yoga, Young Turks, and Zoo Music.