So, you get Sacred Tapes, Tesla Tapes, Astro:Dynamics, Bleep, and artists Helm and Ekoplekz (on PAN and Planet Mu.) It’s all heavy hitters of the underground scene in the UK. Unfortunately, it’s also all white and UK-based. It occurs to me that the economy of the cassette worldwide could make it an international medium. I found my own cassette collection was as likely to come from friends shopping India or Indonesia as Europe or the US. And that need not be traditional music, either – my experience is that the growing interest in raunchy low-fi is one that extends well beyond the Western world. There’s something, I suspect, waiting to happen here. Shipping or trading tapes across continents could let makers of weirdo dark music connect.
But one thing you shouldn’t do is scoff. We live in the era of all of the above – 192kHz, 64-bit and multichannel surround against mono 1-bit circuits and tapes and distortion and everything in between. Freed from the notion that we have to progress from A to B, we can enjoy all of it. And that seems a good thing.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
