Jason Zeh

Cassette composer and Xerox artist Jason Zeh from Bowling Green Ohio, has spent the better part of the last decade and a half forging a unique sonic vocabulary that seeks to uncover the inherent flaws in cassette tapes and to devise processes that bring those flaws into sharp focus. Zeh forces the listener to focus on the hidden traits and materiality of cassette tape: scratches on the surface, the clicking of the machinery, the magnetic fields of the motors, layering of tape hiss, and the physical manipulation of magnetic granules on the surface of the tape all become key compositional elements instead of obstacles to be overcome in the interest of producing an unblemished recording. Zeh’s work has been variously described as “noise plus,” by Frans de Waard, and as “brutally precise non-music” by Khristopher Rienshagen, accurately addressing his tireless search for an extended technique cassette music that is often difficult to pin down.