"Cassette Murderer"

At the age of 14, Ms. Car ganged up two dual cassette decks, borrowing one from her younger sister, and set out to dissect and destroy her tapes.

Instead of using a screw driver and opening the cassette casing, Rachel would cue up the lyrics and pull tape straight from the bottom opening. She would then snip out her selection, scotch tape the cassette tape back together and continue this process until she had omitted all the lyrical content. The only exception being if the song was a remix, in which case she would loop the breakdown.

She would then sit on her bed and place the sections of cut tape on a book and piece them together. One of her most elated discoveries occurred when she accidentally taped a section in upside-down and backwards. Zzzzzrrrrp. New sound.

In the ganging, she would play back tracks simultaneously from both sides of the dual cassette deck and bring them into the other deck to record.

Today we have computers and oh, the endless possibilities they present for young creative minds. Instant gratification upon demand. Cutting a few sounds and inserting them into a sequence inverted is a few short keyboard shortcuts.

Although, in all the time and meticulous attention needed to make a twenty second section of originally re-mixed music, Ms. Car might have learned something more definite and lasting. In her old analog experiments she likely realized patience and undoubtedly influenced her sound today.