by Larry Wish.

In the Autumn of 2011, I started a side project under the name Used Condo. I had been working in a thrift store for a little over a year, and occasionally some interesting musical gear would come in. One day, I was stocking things out on the floor and came across a bulky, yellow cassette player. It had features that allowed the manipulation of tape speed, tonal quality, and instant side-flipping. This was the notorious Library of Congress C1, used by DIY recordists, tape music obsessives, experimental musicians, and DJs all over.

I absolutely had to have it.The timing of this machine coming into my life was perfect, as I just recently gotten into trying my hand at making tape loops. I spent hours in my room opening up cassette shells with a tiny screwdriver, cutting randomly selected pieces of magnetic tape, and forming a loop by adhering each end with a tiny strip of scotch tape. It was a super exciting and cathartic process that often ended in failure, but could also yield cool organic/decaying sounds, weirdness, and beauty.

It can feel really good to spend a lot of time creating something without the guarantee of knowing what the end result will be, or if there will even be an end result at all.