Last we
ek we chatted with Matt Bacon and Greg Fisher, founders of Moss Toss Recording, a new DIY cassette label based out of Keene, New Hampshire.
Spark & Fizz: You guys released your first cassettes last month with Tiny Sinus. Tell more about that and how the label got started.
Matt: Yea so Tiny Sinus is our band. It’s kinda the catalyst for Moss Toss. Greg was recording a solo project and I was drumming for it.
Greg: We would both get really distracted. Matt is really good at controlling me… like a puppeteer.
M: We noodled a lot.
G: Then a bunch of words just came out of us. And it wasn’t that bad.
M: We kept doing that in between recordings for Greg’s album.
G: One thing led to another and we realized we could put these songs out there before we would even finish my album.
M: We were recording the whole time, so it was all there.
S&F: So that was how Moss Toss got started?
M: Well we wanted to put the songs out. We could have just made a Bandcamp and put it up there but I have made a Bandcamp for every shitty solo project I have recorded. We wanted to make it a little more serious than that and have something physical to go along with it.
G: So we went with that. Once we started making the tapes we realized we could start making tapes for our friends’ bands too.
S&F: So you guys make all the tapes “in house”, correct?
G: Yea
S&F: So how does that work?
M: We take the audio files from the band, mix em on logic and then record them onto the tape deck. Right now we have a single dual deck. We can make a master and bounce it back and forth.
G: Right now, it’s just tape by tape. Taking a long time.
M: I just bought three Tascam 302s, so were gonna make a tower of power! Probably keep it in the closet and be able to make 7 or 8 tapes at once. They’ll still be dubbed in real time. But we’ll be making more at once.
S&F: So how does Moss Toss work on the business side of things?
M: Here’s my goal, when I was a 17 and in a ska band; we wanted to make CDs. We made them ourselves, they looked like shit and cost a bunch of money. I want a 17 year old to come to me and say, “hey can you record my band and make us tapes for under $200?” and we can say, “fuck yea we can”.
G: Yea, a band can come to us, pay for the cost of the tapes. We make them, keep a few and then give the rest to the band. Right now it’s all about getting music into people’s hands.
S&F: So what’s next for Moss Toss?
M: We have two releases coming May 19.
G: Two albums from our friends Something//Something, “Winter Pattern” and “Pixel Fetish”. These albums were released digitally in 2015 and 2016.
M: Something//Something are our neighbors from Manchester, we have played a lot with them over the years. We are excited to be bringing these two albums into the physical world! Moss Toss!
G: Moss Toss!
Links
Pre-order Pixel Fetish and Winter Pattern on Bandcamp
Moss Toss Reccording on Facebook
