...Cassette Culture D.I.Y.: 1979-1982 (Volume 1). An introduction to the D.I.Y. cassette scene 1979-84. The U.K.'s original cassette-scene hosted some of the most inept shambling in the history of recorded music, but there was no shortage of musical genius, either (be that accidental or otherwise). From endless bedrooms filled with home-made gadgets, Woolworths guitars, Casios and soldering fumes, came sounds both stunningly simple and sophisticated -- and vastly more varied than anything on vinyl. These artists seldom made more than 100 copies of their cassettes and typically circulated them for free, with untold thousands of tapes changing hands through the Royal Post. Messthetics' new series samples the more, er, musical sides of the scene (lots of cool electronics, but no 'ambient' or 'industrial' -- and everything's under 5 minutes!): Here is D.I.Y. at its most liberated. Twenty-five tracks on the CD plus five bonus MP3s. 90+ minutes of music. 24-page booklet, crammed with histories, photos, artifacts and an essay from Mick Sinclair, who wrote the original 'Cassette Pets' column for Sounds. Messthetics Greatest Hiss features the superstars of cassette culture and plenty of others: The Jelly Babies, Danny & the Dressmakers, Storm Bugs, Colin Potter, Event Group, The Get, Instant Automatons, Missing Persons, Gravity Craze, Farming Jim & his Hepcat Groovstas, 391, The Chromosomes, Mike Jones, The Living Dead no. 5, Digital Dinosaurs, The Twizlers, Aconite, Casual Labourers (Bendle and other DIY heavies), Midnight Circus, Milkshake Melon, Funhouse, Cultural Amnesia, Stripey Zebras, Chimp Eats Bananas (pre-Chumbawamba!) and Dean Johnson.