A new exhibition from Bristol based designer and Livity Sound collaborator Alex Digard aka Tape Echo is launching at the Donuts store, Bristol on Friday 31st August.
Tape-Echo started in mid 2009, a small blog set up to document the underground music scene in Bristol. All the posts were typed by hand on a typewriter found in the back of a charity shop, the mistakes and cross outs were left in as a reaction against the super-clean, digital format of the internet and, as a nod towards to zine culture and the recent closure of some of the most respected Drum n Bass magazines around.
Then in late 2011, Studio Tape-Echo launched ‘Tape-Echo publication001′ a 32-page, fully typewritten, quarter-fold, colour newspaper, showing that print still has a place alongside its ever-present digital counterpart. The first issue was stocked worldwide and featured exclusive interviews with some of the leading lights of the UK underground. It sold out in no time, leaving many desperate for issue number 2 ‚ which is set to appear very soon.
The ‘grubby simplicity’ aesthetic of the studio, rooted in a love of analog working methods and sound-system culture, has been slowly developing since then. Hours spent unearthing wooden type samples, poring over rare books, experimenting with old cameras and film, self-publishing zines, releasing records, drinking endless cups of coffee…
More recently the studio has been working with some of the finest and most respected names in the UK underground, from established brands including Punch Drunk, Resident Advisor and Clear Skyz through to newer acts and imprints like Gutterfunk, Peng Sound, BRSTL and, perhaps the most well known, Livity Sound.
Be it via the now iconic B&W photographs of the early Dubplate Monthly dances or the hearts and minds graphic approach to the recent Gorgon Sound/Dubkasm release on Peng Sound that saw the first pressing sell out before it had even hit shops, the slightly off kilter, analog aesthetic that the studio has been refining is synonymous with the new generation of underground music producers and artists.
‘Idiosyncratic Aesthetics’ is the first exhibition of the small studio’s collective output, an opportunity to view on a large scale the mixed media output that defines Studio Tape-Echo. Expect decaying sheet metal, vintage typewriters, screen-prints, cassette tapes, projections, products of photocopier abuse as well as a plethora of ephemera that makes the studio as idiosyncratic as it is.
Please join us at Donuts on Perry Road (Bristol) on Friday the 31st of August from 6pm onwards.
The afterparty for the exhibition starts at 10pm in The Bank (Stokes Croft) and we have some of our favourite artists on the decks playing the finest in Dub, House and Techno music.
Entry is free and the joint will be jumpin’ till the early hours.
For more info please email us at ‘info (at) tape-echo.com’
A Facebook group for the event can be found here – http://www.facebook.com/events/475182665840131
www.tape-echo.com
studio.tape-echo.com
www.donutsthestore.co.uk
