by Dominic Acito (@mycamgrlromance)
When lockdown began, many people speculated that maybe this time would result in some great art. Certainly the most recent release by Pile is a testament to the focus afforded by the isolation of the pandemic with its overarching themes unique to this trying time. This release, only available on cassette, is called Second Other Tape. It is the second in a series of cassette-only releases by Pile.
The First Other Tape, if you are lucky enough to have heard it, as it has had limited availability, had a similar retro construction. It had no song titles and no means of navigation other than Sides A and B designations. The cassette explores many of the concepts later expressed in fully produced songs in Pile’s subsequent albums. Some songs were expanded and others archived for future reference, but none forgotten by those who heard them.
Pile, the band that demonstrated there are still many innovative and exciting directions to take the traditional two guitars, bass and drums, are now taking that same innovation into new territory with the introduction of prominent organs, synths and drum machines. While this is a result of an album made with as little personnel as possible, it’s an exciting prospect that Pile will bring this new instrumentation to their next album release.
It’s a release that feels very nostalgic in both its presentation and the music style which brings to mind aesthetics of the 80s and 90s with the use of organs and drum machines as instrumentation. The vocals are undoubtedly that of Rick Maguire, whose unusually hypnotic style of melody making finds itself at home with new instrumentation.
Second Other Tape comes with an accompanying booklet of drawings by Pile’s Rick Maguire. The sketches depict the empty rooms and spaces of lockdown and reflect the music which echoes the emotion of seclusion. The sketches and music combine to establish a powerful sense of atmosphere akin to the feeling one gets driving through a lit but empty city in the late hours of the night, but knowing that it’s somehow different.
By not placing this music on streaming platforms or on CDs or MP3s, the music itself avoids becoming noise for the background of the lockdown. Listening to analog recorded music on devices from a different era force a change of pace from the passive, sometimes mindless ritual of streaming or MP3. It’s a more satisfying, more deliberate act of music listening; a more immersive experience. With this release, you get a chance to dust off the old cassette player, sit down and flip through the booklet and become absorbed in the atmosphere of the piece. It’s not often you get to set aside time specifically for listening where the music is the sole activity. There is no expectation of hooks or a breakdown. It’s as though a friend is laying out the fragile early ideation in one large canvas that explores the artist’s thinking caught in a vulnerable state. It is often said of art that it is never finished, only abandoned. Jeff Tweedy, in his new book “How to Write One Song,” describes how songs are never finished but the deadlines imposed by circumstances offer stopping points. This is one such stopping point for Pile, and a very instructive study that promises more experimentation before the next Pile release.
The Second Other Tape is a window on creativity. You get the feeling that you are party to something private, something fragile in its fledgling stages of writing before the commercial constraints typical of music releases are imposed. The songs are wild and resistant to any sort of classification. There are no track names - maybe the whole cassette is one song. It serves as both a document of interest to those who are curious about stages in the creative process and an enjoyable listening experience freed from the limitations of our expectations.
It’s a welcome, multi-sensory break that makes one realize that the approach to music listening is constrained by years of ingrained recording traditions. It’s an extended experimentation by one of the most innovative musical talents actively making music that is at once reflective of the seclusion and in spite of it. It tells us that we are not alone in being alone– that there are many more powerful things to come musically.
For those interested in this experience I do recommend you get ahold the ‘Second Other Tape’ soon as well as the first, which has only recently been made available again. According to Pile, sales will continue only through December 3rd 2020 and after that they will no longer be available. (If the numerous social media posts asking for the availability of first tape and the unusually high asking price on second hand websites are any indication, “Second Other Tape” will become a highly sought after release).