Music & Elsewhere

About

Music & Elsewhere emerged from Surrey's foggy edges in 1987, a fractal bloom of cassette-bound experimental soundscapes. For thirteen years, the label operated as an interdisciplinary nexus, where exploratory tapes were crafted and distributed with a DIY ethos that defied the commodification of music. At the heart of this was a commitment to the cassette — each release a tactile artifact of the underground scene. The label's catalog, a sprawling archive of 546 releases, is a testament to its process-driven spirit. Magic Moments At Twilight Time, Gypsy, and Earth are but fragments of the vast mosaic, their sounds captured in magnetic spools. The M&E Audiozine Spring 2000 Edition encapsulates the label's ethos — a sonic periodical that served as an auditory portal into the liminal spaces of late 20th-century experimental music. Lovemuscle Baby by Acidfuck, with its visceral title and equally bold contents, carved out a niche in the late '90s landscape, vibrating with raw energy and unrefined passion. Music & Elsewhere wasn't just a label; it was a movement within the cassette culture, rejecting the mainstream's gloss in favor of sculptural audio experiences. Releases like If It's Fetishes You're After… by The Stinking Badger of Java and Non-Specific Meat by The Bionics reflected a diverse sonic palette that embraced the strange and the avant-garde. These tapes weren't mere recordings; they were process-driven documents of an era when music was as much about the journey of creation as the destination of listening. Through its curation, Music & Elsewhere provided a platform for the invisible to be heard, an echo of the uncharted territories of sound. It was a sanctuary for artists like Lord Litter and Jaws of the Flying Carpet, where their experimental tapes could find an audience willing to travel the audio labyrinth with them. As the millennium turned, the label's influence echoed on, a relic of a time when the cassette was king, and the boundaries of music were delightfully porous.