Nashville pedal steel maverick and Third Man recording artist Luke Schneider has curated the latest Imaginational Anthem compilation from Tompkins Square. While its uniqueness may stem from the exploration of pedal steel music, ‘Luke Schneider Presents Imaginational Anthem vol. XI: Chrome Universal – A Survey of Modern Pedal Steel’ is also the label’s first-ever cassette release (a CD and digital release are planned for Aug 5th with vinyl to follow later).
Before digging deeper into this new offering, it’s worth touching on the cassette tape’s place in music today. It’s a fascinating one, especially in DIY culture, although, in very recent years, the format has also been adopted for a number of mainstream releases. While I’m old enough to remember buying cassettes, I’ve long associated the tape format with fringe music where the format has never really died, i.e. way before the marketing gurus behind Bjork and Billie Eilish decided it was a good idea to jump on the trendy retro-bandwagon. In 2019, the UK recorded its highest sales in a decade (according to The Wire, 75,000 cassettes were sold in the UK).
The difference between the big players out there and the many smaller or specialist outlets that have clung to the format seems culturally vast, having little to nothing in common. The likes of Cabin Floor Esoterica are a good example – a small cottage-style industry label that began making cassette releases in 2009. They came in beautiful little tactile decorated cardboard boxes, often with other ephemera inside, and each one was home dubbed in real-time.
Glancing around the FR office, there are a lot of cassettes on the shelf…quite a few are from Cabin Floor Esoterica as well as releases by other artists, including Cameron Knowler (Live at the Eastman House), Joseph Allred‘s Nightsong, Joshua Massad and Dylan Aycock‘s self-titled release, Officer!‘s Ossification, Stick in the Wheel‘s Against the Loathsome Beyond, and Sally Morgan‘s recent Cups release. I even have Lankum‘s Cold Old Fire on cassette. In the main, I suppose most of the releases I have are by guitarists, where the tape seems to still find a lot of favour, so it’s no real surprise that Tompkins Square should be drawn to the format.
Of course, the cassette had a big part to play in the DIY and punk music scene; for many; it was also an affordable means of making a promo and of self-distribution – the likes of Daniel Johnston spring to mind. The history of the compact cassette tape was explored in ‘Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape’ in which Lou Ottens, the inventor, dug through the past to figure out why the format won’t die…he was aided in his mission by the likes of Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins and Damien Jurado who saw it as a gateway to creativity. If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend it.
Back to this new release from Tompkins Square, Luke Schneider is an in-demand session musician in Nashville, Tennessee and has been a core band member for the likes of William Tyler as well as Caitlin Rose, Margo Price, and Orville Peck.
Last year, Schneider collaborated with fellow guitarist William Tyler on the four-song EP Understand, via Leave Records, while in 2020, his radical approach to the steel guitar shone through on Altar of Harmony. His playing of a 1967 Emmons Push/Pull pedal steel guitar was described as a total reinvention of an iconic instrument. Listen to the album’s opening track, anteludium:
Imaginational Anthems X was curated by Marcus Obst (of Dying For Bad Music), and the IX (reviewed here) saw Ryley Walker take the helm. These highly anticipated releases from Tompkins Square are far from predictable. As Glenn Kimpton said in his review of IX: “Although in his album cover message Ryley hails those supporting the future of solo guitar music, anybody expecting a compilation of American Primitive influenced acoustic finger-style instrumentals will be surprised by the variety of material present on this disc.”
On Luke Schneider Presents Imaginational Anthem vol. XI: Chrome Universal – A Survey of Modern Pedal Steel’ there are exclusive tracks by legend BJ Cole, as well as leading exponents on the instrument, including Susan Alcorn, Luke himself, and British ex-pat /Nashville hotshot Spencer Cullum among others. Nashville native and Merge recording artist William Tyler has written a beautifully detailed history of the pedal steel for the package (CD & LP versions only).
Buy the Chrome Coloured Limited Edition Cassette via Bandcamp or Tompkins Square
CD/Digital/LP releases to follow.
Tracklisting
1) BJ Cole – Ely Revisited
2) Jonny Lam – Rainbow Across the Valley
3) Rocco Deluca – Many Singing Softly
4) Luke Schneider – Yosemite
5) Spencer Cullum – An Ode to Dungeness
6) Barry Walker Jr. – I Will Tread Upon the Lion and the Cobra
7) Susan Alcorn – Gilmor Blue
8) Maggie Bjorkland – Lysgliimt
9) Will Van Horn – Attwater