I wrote 60 songs the first year I wrote songs. Some survive on a tape which I have cleverly re-titled “KLF (B-sides and rarities)” lest a casual visitor in my home spy my late teen embarrassments and give them a sneaky airing during an otherwise genteel dinner party. Things would get ugly. Ribs would be broken in a hasty tangle en route to the stop button.

Those songs were recorded on an inherited National boombox with an in-built mic. It sat on my bookcase at about head height and I leant in pretty close to get the best mix balance between my earnest singing and the practice amp fuzz. That tape recorder went on to record lots of band practices. When I listen back I notice a lot of 17 minute songs that could use a nip and a tuck, but I also hear a warm, even drum sound that I can’t seem to find a way to find again.

Eventually I moved up to a 4-track and made hours and hours of strange, droning music. I had a drum machine, a Boss GT-5 guitar effects box, a dynamic microphone. Everything went through the GT5, with me manipulating the sound as it was recorded. Usually a track of drums, two guitars and then heavily effected vocals. Easy music to make, and full of a strange spirit that evaporates the minute you TRY.

In Brooklyn at the moment, a lot of bands are either not trying too hard, or trying hard to seem not to. The cassette crust is alive and well on an album called Revenger by Knight School, and it’s a crust seemingly shared by large proportions of the well established Brooklyn DIY indie scene. Revenger has the sweet/sad song smarts to cut through the noise and the crowd. The album has lovely moments of Flying Nun style early ’80s NZ jangle to offset the 90s America that this kind of lo-fi inevitably calls to mind. An unforced, joyous feel underpins the whole venture, giving their tape hiss the proper platform upon which to float.

Deli Magazine has a great article about the Brooklyn DIY scene and after that you can visit Knight’s School MySpace.