Portland based Amulets has created a stunningly unique catalogue across the last five years or so. In addition to guitar and effects Amulets carries a notable trademark of making music from tape loops, and making tape loops from cutting up and rebuilding cassettes.
Amulets is the solo-project of one Randall Taylor out of Austin, Texas. Instead of hiding the tools to his art Taylor seems to be on a mission to inspire more tape loop based artists. His bandcamp page frequently boasts not just limited releases but hand built cassettes and equipment that can be purchased.
In the way that Jahtari expanded it’s remit to sell gear that could be used to emulate their sound signature Amulets is enabling his audience to create themselves. I’d recommend any music maker try their hand at creating a tape loop using his video below.
Last week he announced the MVS-1 Tape Experimentation Bundle available through his shop. It’s a starter kit comprising of a cassette player with variable speed, a tape loop, a blank cassette and a random sampling tape to get started. The cassette player has been designed and then hand built buy Taylor. To quote the shop notes:
The MVS-1 is a labor of love and take time to make and source 40 identical tape recorders. I buy them new and used and completely clean, repair, demagnetize, change belts, and test each unit to full working order. I carefully modify each unit with my own custom modification, before prepping, painting, and packaging each unit.
The big selling point for me was the adjustable pitch. If I had the money I would have loved to have picked up two to DJ off of. At $300USD though a pop that wasn’t going to happen though. And by the time I’d started justifying the outlay for one in my head all 40 had already sold out.
Fortunately with project success often comes a second round and the site mentions there will be a second bath. In the meantime get familiar with Amulets through one of the links below.
Amulets: http://www.amuletsmusic.com
Amulets bandcamp: https://amulets.bandcamp.com
MVS-1: https://amulets.bigcartel.com/product/mvs-1
