Sunday 29th June at 18:00 the Free Radicals will focus on the music cassette.
The music cassette: Invented in the sixties of the last century by Lou Otten. And in the late 70s and early 80s the beginning of a vibrant DIY cassette culture, in which musicians recorded and distributed their own music.
In the Netherlands, the VPRO radio program “De Radiola Improvisatie Salon” by Willem de Ridder was at the start of this movement. From 1978 to 1984 he invited listeners to record their own music on a cassette.
In the broadcast of the Free Radicals on Sunday 29th June attention will be paid to the LP recently released by Dead Mind Records: Willem de Ridder & the Radio Art Foundation present “Radiola”. But also attention to contemporary music cassette releases. Because the music cassette is alive! And in 2025 we see a renewed interest in this sound carrier And what has ensured that the music cassette is still used as a sound carrier after so many years? That has to do with the pocket size and durability. You can easily put the tape in your trouser pocket, the casing provides good protection for the tape and if we load a cassette into a cassette deck, the quality turns out to be very acceptable. Old tapes continue to sound fresh and the new generation of cassettes have a greatly improved signal/noise ratio.
But the most special thing about that music cassette is that it has given a generation of musicians the opportunity to distribute their music without the intervention of the powerful music industry. The self-tapers of the late 70s and early 80s were the first DIY producers for which the Netherlands is so famous today.
And now, more than forty years later, the Allard Pierson Museum, Concertzender, Diggin’ Demos and Muziekweb are joining forces to bring this unique heritage back into the spotlight. With the support of Podiumkunst.net, some 500 highlights from Dutch cassette culture will be made accessible, including via the Muziekweb platform. The Concertzender is producing a series of programmes about cassette culture, and there will be club nights throughout the Netherlands on this theme. In addition, we are looking for lost Radiola broadcasts and stories of cassette pioneers are being recorded.
All of this will be presented in 2026. And so also in the programme Re:light on the Concertzender. Every second Thursday of the month, the button will be set to Rewind. And we will delve into early Dutch music cassette culture in a series of 12 radio broadcasts.
Would you like to know more about this cultural heritage project? Podiumkunst.net: https://www.podiumkunst.net/projecten/opkomst-van-de-nederlandse-cassettecultuur/ Radiola Improvisatie Salon: https://linktr.ee/cassettecultuur
The monthly programme Re:light shines a light on special and striking media expressions. Such as music productions that have also been heard on other radio stations, cross-border audiovisual projects, museum sound installations, unlocked cultural heritage and/or audio documentaries about conceptual sound art.
For example, a first broadcast can be listened to again about the more contemporary cassette culture in Re:light of Thursday, January 11, 2024: https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/relight_748465/
And click here to go to the broadcast of the Free Radicals on June 29th at 6:00 PM.
