Eats Tapes (Tigerbeat6, Community Library) build and rebuild their own synthesisers, drum machines and noise-making toys, and use them to create uniquely mutated acid techno. Now based in San Francisco, Marijke Jorritsma and Gregory Zifcak met in Portland, where they still have connections - notably with Paul Dickow, aka Strategy. After moving to California together, Jorritsma and Zifcak formed Boom de La Boom (Eats Tapes’ first incarnation) “…a slower, more indie, New Order kind of thing, but still with house beats” says Zifcak. While immersed in San Francisco’s thriving dance/electronic/noise milieu their sound evolved “we became faster, noisier, and harder, and then we changed the name.”
Eats Tapes’ productions are built around vintage synths and drum machines, particularly the acid sounds of the TB-303 and old Roland beat boxes, which the duo work to make a squelchy riot of house rhythms with idiosyncratic influences from the noise scene stitched in. Feedback, careering toy loops and other oddities are welded with beats to create a new context and texture for techno.
Playing in basements, warehouses and clubs, EatsTapes started attracting attention around San Francisco, and they are now well known for frequent appearances at Bay area punk events and dance parties. Their live performances are notorious for neo-anachronistic, futuristic-retro displays of quirky, knob-twiddling intensity – no laptops in sight; piles of antiquated analogue equipment; webs of wires spewing everywhere; cassette decks adding hissy tape warmth; short wave radios; glockenspiels – the shows have tactility, visuality and authenticity.
With video artist Nate Boyce on board adding kaleidoscopic rainbow distortions, Eats Tapes becomes multi-media and the performances spiral into the synaesthetic.
In the orbit of kid606’s label and cohorts for some time, Eats Tapes’ debut album
Sticky Buttons was released by Tigerbeat6 in 2005, and to support the release Jorritsma and Zifcak joined the Tigerbeat6 label tour,
Paws Across America, accompanying kid606 and Canada’s Knifehandchop. A 12”,
Supreme Monster, followed later in the year, and
Dinosaur Days, an ep on Paul Dickow’s Portland label Community Library, was released shortly after.
>www.eatstapes.com
Appearances:
> CTM.06
