Heya everyone!

Pitchfork was a HUGE success, and it was great to meet all of you loyal tape fans that managed to hit us up at the booth. We sold a lot of tapes, drank a lot of beer and made a lot of friends.

For those that weren’t able to make it out, we’re going to offer up some of the new jamz via mailorder before they hit the stores.

If you’re interested, hit us up at plustapes @ gmail.com to see what we still have in stock
We can do stuff overseas as well, just drop a line and we’ll figure it out.

PT16 – Radius – Scatterbrain Tapes Vol. 1
Radius’s “Scatterbrain Tapes Vol. 1” beat tape harks back to this golden age of rap producing. But it’s not completely retro-chic either. Born, bred and loved in the city of Chicago, Ramon Norwood’s productions bridge the eras of the MPC60 and the MPC5000, from EPMD’s “Strictly Business” to Flying Lotus’s “Los Angeles.” He sticks to the rhythmic backbone of the hip-hop culture: the acoustic drum loop. But interweaved are the same engaging digital melodies that must’ve haunted Premier’s dreams at night in the pre-Pro Tools age. Hip-hop for the second decade of the new millenium!

PT17 – Mannequin Men – Prehistoric Shit
Must-have, limited-to-100 cassette tape from Chicago’s favorite omni-drunk garage-rockers MANNEQUIN MEN!!! All of the material on this tape is previously unreleased: songs that were only recorded in their practice space, songs only played live, radio show jams, etc.

PT18 – Red River School of Taxidermy –
Chicago band Red River School Of Taxidermy makes the brand of strong, hooky post-punk with distorted vocals that engulfs you with its endless intrigue. Imagine the damaged JOY DIVISION-ness of something on CAPTURED gene-spliced with the hookiness of THE PONYS and you’re somewhere in the ballpark. Limited and essential!
Plus stickers while supplies last.

PT19 – Black Wyrm Seed
The gents from Black Wyrm Seed create a musical menagerie of melodic metal not unlike fellow travelers Dead Meadow (pre- their L.A. makover) or any number of hazy psychedelic rock bands of years gone by. Imagine 1970s private-press jazz-infused metal, all faeries and fauna and shit. Now you’re starting to get the picture. It’s droney without the doom, like a serpent eating its own tail.

PT20 – Death Ships – Notes From The Captains Quarters
Originally setting sail from the landlocked environs of Iowa City, Iowa, Death Ships are not what you’d expect. Now based in Chicago, the band’s sound mixes elements of rock, folk, pop, and alt country into an enchanting array of seaworthy songs. Dan Maloney’s alluring vocals play as much to melody as they do the lamenting lyrics. A little Lou Reed, a little Townes Van Zandt, and a touch of Tom Petty echo out of his twangy coos. It’s earnest, solemn and engulfing; exactly what you’ll need permeating from your cassette deck on the drive home this evening.

PT21 – DJ Wisconsin – Gypsy Kung Fu
Don’t let the moniker fool you, as there’s not much “DJing” to speak of on the brilliant and lengthy Gypsy Kung Fu. The instrumentation here varies from guitar to distant banjo, muted pianos, harmonium, soft drums and even a few minutes of reverb-drenched, garage style saxophone. The poetic ingenuity of the lyrics, delivered in a folksy, country drawl will leave you pondering the whereabouts of ice cream socialists or what it’s like to be a stranger in one’s own mind

PT22 – Implodes
Implodes is a Chicago quartet that prefers to keep the melodies and lyrics hidden in fuzzy distortion, reverb, echo & effects. Mostly the sounds are distant and dissonant, but slyly hidden below the surface are rays of melodic sunshine that peak through the clouds from time to time. Think Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Suicide and Flying Saucer Attack, but, you know, more… schizo.

PT23 – Blasted Diplomats
Blasted Diplomats: “I began to realize that it was all the same- my teenage-dissolution lifestyle and the music of groups like the Troggs, Shadows of Knight, Music Machine, Seeds, Question Mark, Count Five. They were all full of shit and so was I. And none of us cared. We had all heard the Yardbirds’ brilliant innovations, but since almost none of the above listed groups really knew how to play their instruments, all they could do was bang away in rackety imitation. Which was when I first realized that quality and musicianship and taste actually had nothing whatsoever to do with Rock n’ Roll; in fact might be its worst enemies.”

We also have limited quantities of the following two tapes still in stock AND copies of the Chris Connelly LP on our vinyl label Addenda. You want stuff, and we’re happy to send it to you!!

PT15 – Gamelan Bell
Hyper limited release (50) by a one-off, super-stoned group of high school kids called Gamelan Bell. It’s a meandering mess, but somehow endearingly likeable. Packaged with 4 (count ‘em, 4) photocopied comic books.
LAST COPIES!!!!!

PT06 – Disappears – Live Over the Rainbo (Pro-dubbed edition)
Holy shit was this band amazing at the Pitchfork festival. We love them so much that we begged them to let us have another go at releasing their tape, and this time we went with pro-dubbing, so the sound is even sweeeeeter. We’re down to the last few copies of these, and there will not be any represses, we promise.

If you missed picking up the limited tour CD-R from Chicago’s next-big-thing in underground rock, Plustapes has got your back! Re-Re-pressed on your favorite Ludditian medium – the irreplaceable cassette tape (this time professionally dubbed!!)- Live Over the Rainbo captures Disappears’ stellar live show from 10/26/08. Encapsulating that moment when post-punk first took notice of the power soaring electric guitars can have and slowly morphed its sound into what we now lovingly called shoegaze, it’s tough not to get caught up in Disappears’ subterranean grooves! Prepare yourself now, because we have a feeling 2009 is going to be a big year for these Chicagoans.

First, i’d like to apologize to anyone that has been awaiting an email reply or any mail order. It’s been a whirlwind of activity here at Plustapes HQ getting 9 new releases ready in time for the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 17-19. That’s right…9 releases. Astounding!!