Comments on: Constellation Tatsu micro-label's cassette and VHS releases

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:53:00 +0000

I’m knocking it cause tapes blow chunks.

Actually, Hifi VHS isn’t too shabby, but it’s still a tape that needs rewinding.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:52:00 +0000

Snap, beat me to it

By: James Penrose

James Penrose — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:56:00 +0000

I’m holding out until they release a line of recordings on wax cylinder and some videos on Zoetrope revolving shades.

Wow, we really are getting decadent in these latter years.

By: John Vance

John Vance — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:51:00 +0000

Screw the haters, I’m loving this music, as well as the retro-styled media. I mean, c’mon, at least they’re doing something different. Don’t knock it if it’s just not *your* kind of different.

By: Tim Ortiz

Tim Ortiz — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:56:00 +0000

http://youtu.be/bsND7aibvOQ

By: Jeremy Einsweiler

Jeremy Einsweiler — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:44:00 +0000

Maybe not the same in a videography sense. Haven’t “The Boards of Canada” been making this music since around 2004?

http://www.boardsofcanada.com/news.html

By: Tom Buckholz

Tom Buckholz — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:35:00 +0000

there are a lot of assumptions going on here. i enjoy this style of video , and i make videos that could be compared to this – however i do it all with the equipment i have been able to put together over the years while living paycheck to paycheck, in debt, as a young-ish perosn who grew up on VHS and cassettes. i cant afford a really nice DSLR but i have 2 vhs cams i can use (with much better controls than digital) to route video into my computer and then edit. and the style is actually more in tune with what i grew up on and appreciate than digital. plus when thats all you have you can exploit the artifacts and visual effects that come with the equipment. so it does frustrate me to see this become a trend , when you know people are buying hi def expen$ive cameras and macs and then doing it with a final cut filter. or whatever. because im doing it with a $300 refurb tower computer and a couple $10 VHS cams. to me it is an integral part of making art and always has been ; doing it on a budget and exploiting that budget (or lack of one) to take advantage of what you have rather than be limited by it. there is a long tradition of this in art. but dont assume people are intentionally downgrading their quality for no reason or artificially..they might be capitalizing on those quirks and unique characteristics of what they have to work with. i have friends in bands (who i have made videos for) who release cassettes w/download codes because they can put them out on their own terms and still give you a cheap physical object. sorry for the ramble.

By: Dwight Pavlovic

Dwight Pavlovic — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 11:40:00 +0000

So in art the sound or look of “broken” (perceived, as stabilized by technological improvements in media rendering) isn’t as legitimate as the sound or look of happy, or sad, etc?

By: Heevee Lister

Heevee Lister — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 07:10:00 +0000

I don’t get this interest in deliberately degrading video and audio. Maybe I’m just turning into my old man. He was a longtime electronic tinkerer, always working on his (tubed) hi-fi gear and guitar amplifier. One of his “these kids” moments was an afternoon, probably in the mid-1960s, when he first heard fuzzed-out electric guitar. He shook his head and told me, “We worked for decades to get the distortion out of amplifiers, and now these kids are adding it back in.”

By: urbanspaceman

urbanspaceman — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:06:00 +0000

As for the music, I think A. Produce would approve!

By: Stephen Schenck

Stephen Schenck — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 04:34:00 +0000

So, unless I’m misunderstanding this, these videos are high-quality VHS recordings of intentionally distorted video. I’m not unappreciative towards what this project’s trying to do, but it can’t help but feel super fake, like making a Photoshop that looks like an oil painting, cracks and all, and then screen printing it onto a canvas, rather than straight-up actually painting something. On the flip side, I’d much rather pay good money for faithfully, carefully degraded recordings of originally-high-quality video.