On the road with d: Cassettes Won't Listen

One of my favorite albums that I've been listening to this month is Cassettes Won't Listen's Small-Time Machine. Now, this isn't a particularly new release; the album came out in March, but I hadn't given it a listen yet until earlier this month and I'm glad I checked it out.

Cassettes Won't Listen is Jason Drake and he's a one man band blending electronica and indie rock. When he started, he was just having fun with it and he wanted to trick people into thinking that it was a full band. He fairly effectively did this with his early songs including the first song he had written under the name Cassettes Won't Listen, Cutting Balloons.


Cassettes Won't Listen - Cutting Balloons

Cassettes Won't Listen - The Freed Pig


Cassettes Won't Listen - Change

In 2007, Cassettes Won't Listen released a free EP called One Alternative, his most recent in a string of EPs that were released only in digital form. This 5-track EP consists mainly of covers of songs that Drake used to listen to growing up and two songs on the site are from this EP: his cover of Blind Melon's Change and his cover of Sebadoh's The Freed Pig.

Cassettes Won't Listen - Paper Float

Small-Time Machines is the first physically released album that Cassettes Won't Listen has made. Small-Time Machines shows Drake's skill in layering putting many instrumental lines together and making the countermelodies work. The site already has one of the album's strongest songs, Paper Float, layering electric guitar, piano, and synth with his vocals into a catchy song. Below is another track from this album.


Cassettes Won't Listen - Large Radio

Cassettes Won't Listen also has various remixes to its name such as one of Pela's Lonesome Hearts. On his remixes, Drake has said, "I approach a remix from a hip hop producers mentality. I rarely use anything other than the vocal track and I usually don’t listen to the original song much. I feel it would have a negative effect on the outcome. I usually scrap the chord progression and song structure and create the music from scratch. I often look at it as a puzzle where I have to unlock the music within the vocals. I can usually listen to music and hear a completely new song underneath the vocals. That's usually how I start."


Pela - Lonesome Hearts (Cassettes Won't Listen remix)

Cassettes Won't Listen website
Cassettes Won't Listen MySpace