The 7″ Cassette

It’s almost October 2015, which means that around twenty years ago I returned from travelling in Australia and Asia and decided I wanted to start a band, write songs, play live and continue travelling the world but as a musician. Twenty years later I have played about 2000 concerts (as Zea and with The Ex), on six continents, in thirty-five different countries; I released five full length Zea albums, many 7″s, a few EPs, many songs on compilations and four cassettes including one in Ethiopia.

There are songs that we played live but never put out, songs on B-sides of 7″s that sold out fast, songs on very limited compilations and songs that I found behind a drawer of my digital closet. Over the years people have asked me for these songs and this summer I took the time to dig them all up, make a selection and release them on a cassette. On November 27 there will be a festival with long-time friends to celebrate this anniversary and then I move on to the next release, concert, country and continent.

So here it is: from the single “We Buried Indie Rock Years Ago” to the mash-up of Coldplay’s “Clocks”. From the acoustic “Atomic Heart” to a cover of Wim T Schippers’ “Stuck On You” to the Zea single “An Experience Of Trouble” played by Ghanaian musician Peter Carbonu. I enjoyed putting this all together, including going through old pictures, writing short stories about the songs and asking friends to tell an anecdote. I am not the best archivist, and some people might really miss something, but hey, this is not my epitaph and these are not the last cassettes in the universe. It’s actually great to see more and more people releasing and buying cassettes. I have never stopped recording on tape and still use C90 cassettes for my dictaphone to record new ideas. I hope you enjoy this.