by Werner Fitzgerald Smith
The peculiar thing about the magnetic tape as a recording medium is more than just the inherent analogue warmth; its coveted compression and saturation. It also includes tapes' inevitable shortcoming as a physical medium – it will die. This death, just like that of a brain, is a consequence of being.
When a tape is played again, and again, it slowly begins to disintegrate. However, it is the disintegration of the tape that lends itself to a feeling of nostalgia. A sentimental yearning for the parts of a memory that warbles and pitches up and down, ebbing and flowing; the fluttering of a loop playing in perpetuum.