VA – 80s Underground Cassette Culture Volume 2 [Contort Yourself]

We don’t know what pleases us more, the release of this album or the return of this great label. After a long period of inactivity, Contort Yourself returns to work by releasing a second part of 80s Underground Cassette Culture, an album that released its first volume in 2017 and which was also very well received.

80s Underground Cassette Culture collects tracks from different artists and bands that were originally released in the 1980s in cassette format. This compilation discovers and recalls the buoyant countercultural and global scene that resisted the canons of the music industry by applying the DIY punk philosophy to a large extent. What’s more, it comes at a time when the planet needs a reboot and when society is missing the need to adopt this kind of less consumerist approach.

This second volume follows similar guidelines to the original release in terms of musical genre, as the style of the 21 tracks is broad but they all recall the original sound of the 80s, the spirit of post-punk and the early industrial and experimental scene, given that the textures show the degradation and the sound quality that identifies this era so much. Another characteristic that identifies these two releases is the selection of tracks and artists featured, as both volumes combine names with an important trajectory with other artists or bands with much less projection. Many of the projects are totally unknown to us because their trajectory is limited to a few titles, but we can find famous authors such as Nocturnal Emissions, Merzbow or Blackhouse, who collaborate in the first volume, or also renowned projects with a long trajectory such as Nostalgie Éternelle, If, Bwana or M Nomized.

Release date: October 24th, 2022.