New cassette-only series announced featuring Patty Griffin, John Prine, Built to Spill and more

The upcoming cassette-only series will include a new collection of demos and home recordings from Patty Griffin titled TAPE, as well as numerous reissues from artists including John Prine, Built to Spill and more, marking the first time they've been available on cassette. Griffin has also released her TAPE track "Get Lucky" to accompany the news.

Included in the reissues are Built to Spill's 2020 album Built to Spill Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston, John Prine's The Tree of Forgiveness, Suzanne Vega’s An Evening of New York Songs and Stories, Mother Nature’s SZNZ and Versus’ Ex Voto.

The albums will be released on RecordingTheMasters’ RTM C-60 high quality audio cassette tape, and will be the first RecordingTheMasters series to feature environmentally-friendly packaging. Select independent record stores in the US will also have RecordingTheMasters' B-1000 Portable Cassette Player up for grabs, which features a built-in microphone and external microphone recording.

Speaking about her TAPE album, Griffin said, "At some point in the pandemic, I was digging through my own streaming music to relearn some of my own oldies. I found something that had been compiled (perhaps by a computer algorithm?) as a "rarities" or "deep cuts" collection, I forget which it was titled. I looked of course and it was a pretty boring list for the most part. I later dug through some recordings I had done on cheap home recording apps, including my favourite one called TapeDeck which I‘m not sure exists anymore. I really liked some of the songs. They were better than I had remembered. I dug around some more and found things from some Garage Band recordings and then also a couple of things from an in-studio demo session in Nashville that were pretty interesting, including a duet I did with Robert Plant when we first met. It all seemed worth listening to. Back then I didn’t think so, but I do now."

Griffin added, "The sound quality on the majority of things on TAPE is pretty low but the performances are what really matter to me. My home recordings are almost always my favourite recordings, as far as capturing a fresh, direct feeling. The shy introvert’s dilemma, I've always had a hard time creating that in a studio full of people whose talent is in sound quality. The songs have a feel you can only get when you’re by yourself at three o'clock in the morning. To listen to the bulk of these recordings you do have to let go of the idea of good sound quality and just listen to the performance. I feel better getting some true rarities out there for people to listen to, not compiled by a computer algorithm."