Chong Wizard - VIDEO TAPE CLUB

Video Tape Club understands that being in every household does not make you great. Free Willy was in every theater. Ten songs with a total of twenty three vocal performers here. Each new voice a fully realized cult classic with its own voracious following. Before technology sold us on being connected and left us trapped, cult classic movies transcended simple sales figures. These films lived several lives outside of industry control. It was the industrious hands of people who cared about these tapes lending their favorite movie in the world to another pair of hands in the hope its reach could extend as far as word of mouth could carry. From Doeseone to ICECOLDBISHOP to Michael Christmas and Myka 9 these are all stars you have to be in the right place on Earth to view within the skyline. Some you know, others you’ve heard of, even some you haven’t… all guided by the steady hand of Chong Wizard who understands each voice enough to give it the biggest screen cinemascope feel.

I remember trading tapes being an experience beyond genre. I just wanted to be awed in a way that changed me. Chong Wizard’s construction of this project is similarly beyond subgenre into a pure resonance of feel. It makes sense to think of Estee Nack, Open Mike Eagle, and Lungs & Phiik as making three different types of rap songs. On Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow that fuzzy post-Rza guitar becomes beautiful strings by the end to ensure everyone sounds like it is their song. Michael Keaton Birdman bathes us in the slush of hi hat articulation, the jazziest feel actualized making Michael Christmas sound Native Tongues in a way I never knew I wanted. The feel created these songs with Chong’s hands and buried propulsive tempos underneath flourishes it takes a lifetime to place.

These songs are not a vintage time capsule to transport you back to the good old days. Chris Crack, .tetsuo, Brother Tom SOS are right now. Video Tape Club is for the world of people who really care about side A and side B, how featured voices become songs and track sequencing builds. It reclaims the physical act of loving hip hop. For those of us, those musical mathematicians, I warn you to bring all the powers of overthink. You’ll never hear these combinations again (sliding from Nolan The Ninja to .tetsuo to Doseone on Good For Health, Bad For Education) which creates a ride you can’t replicate. E L U C I D is so warm and real. Producer albums with multiple emcees tend to end up a confusing buffet (most of the time intentionally in order to get you interested in the artists/producer; each song feels like a single) by contrast you’ll rarely hear one as coherent as Video Tape Club that doesn’t insist but develops like a picture in the darkroom. Some of the most competent hands in the business patient enough to follow the feel resulting in ten songs so vivid we can see the movie develop as we listen.
——Dan O of Freemusicempire

All songs produced by Chong Wizard
All songs mixed & mastered by Ro Data
Guitar on track 2 by Scotty Metz
Violin & Viola on track 2 by Katie Jacoby
Bass on tracks 9 & 10 by Adi Bop
Artwork by Paul Rentler