Crawling with Tarts

About

Crawling with Tarts navigates the dense terrain of noise with an approach both tactile and cerebral, weaving tapestries from the remnants of sound’s detritus. Active from 1984 to 1993, their entire output resides within the confines of the cassette — a chosen medium as deliberate as their compositions. Michael Gendreau helms this odyssey, though his role remains as enigmatic as the sounds produced. Each release is a testament to the group's mastery of the tape collage, with "1 Snak 2 Rider" (1993, Music & Elsewhere) standing as a pinnacle of intricate manipulation. The tapes spin and stutter, loops unfurling into ecstatic chaos and then recoiling into moments of calm, only to be consumed once more by the overwhelming saturation of found sounds and improvisational landscapes. "Greed Tool Hand in the Lee of Icebergs" (1990, ASP) beckons listeners into a world where early experimental influences merge with a raw, unpolished edge — a reflection of their commitment to analog's tactile reality. In this space, Crawling with Tarts doesn’t just create; they construct abstract audio narratives that challenge and obliterate conventional structures. Their sonic evolution is not linear but tectonic, shifting and colliding with the force of a project unbound by time or trend. Collaborators and kindred spirits like Big City Orchestra and Small Cruel Party weave through their discography, contributing to a label network that emphasizes the communal over the commercial. The extensive cassette releases, from the early "Tea Room" (1984, ASP) to "The Tudor Tapes" (1989, ASP), form a saturated chronicle of a decade steeped in the ecstatic embrace of sound's limitless potential. For Crawling with Tarts, every tape spins a story, every sound a possibility.