If you’ve still got Voxtrot EPs in your Oldsmobile’s 6CD changer and you still haven’t washed the Broken West t-shirt you wore to the last Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! show, then you probably remember Minneapolis blog-bloomers Tapes ‘n Tapes, who, after getting promptly booted off the radar for not being D.I.Y. enough on 2008’s Walk It Off, kinda went the way of the… well, blog band, I guess.
Or did they??? Tapes ‘n Tapes are apparently not about to take this whole being-written-off thing lying down. Not D.I.Y. enough, you say? Fine. Then how does a self-produced third full-length released on your own record label sound? Bam. Yeah, indie as fuck, man, that’s how. The band booked a studio in their home town and tracked the thing themselves over a span of two weeks. Then they asked Peter Katis (Interpol, The National) to help mix. And instead of those corporate rock shills over at XL Recordings who released their first two albums, this one — titled Outside because of how outside the mainstream they clearly are — is dropping on their own newly-resurrected Ibid Records on January 11. Ahhh, can you even handle the blog appeal right now? Servers are crashing and shit. I can hear them crashing.
“We weren’t worried about if our label thought the mix was right for radio,” said singer Josh Grier. “We weren’t making a record that a label was going to own. We were just making a record for ourselves. We feel very fortunate that we got to make it the way we wanted with such a great group of people. We can’t wait for people to hear the record.” Dude, see? When was the last time you heard someone talk about making the record they wanted to make? Like, never! No one has ever said that. Ever. And I’m sure a D.I.Y. tour is on the horizon following this release. I bet it’s gonna happen in their own cars and shit. Insanity.
Outside tracklist:
01. Badaboom
02. SWM
03. One in the World
04. Nightfall
05. Desert Plane
06. Outro
07. Freak Out
08. The Saddest of All Keys
09. Hidee Ho
10. People You Know
11. On and On
12. Mighty Long
• Tapes ‘n Tapes: http://www.tapesntapes.com
• XL: http://www.xlrecordings.com
• Ibid Records: Page Not Found: Too Independent for the Internet
