Trev Tales – Neon Cassette
Welcome to NEON CASSETTE, the transmission where analog dreams collide with digital ghosts, and every beat feels like a memory you never quite lived.
I’m your host, Trevor, speaking straight from the glow of a flickering CRT, cassette deck spinning, reverb tail trailing into the void.
This new series (I know I do too much already) is an idea I have for doing live DJ sets combined with me reading fictional tales where each transition is a new chapter. I hope you like it. Channel subscribers get the music only mixes of course.
We’re diving deep into the grid—stolen frequencies, midnight motorways, poolside echoes that never quite close up, and utopian mirages that glitch when you get too close. We’ve got a handpicked journey through the underground wires: from the raw pulse of trial and resistance, through lunar skin and stargazing rooftops, all the way to that final white-noise cliff where we realize we can’t wait for death… because the night’s already ours.
So dim the lights, hit play, let the tape hiss fill the room. We’re not just listening—we’re escaping.
Apta – Trial – 01:28
Gavel pixels stutter across the cathode screen, my wrists cuffed in magnetic tape loops. The judge’s face is pure waveform, spiking guilt, spiking innocence, I can’t tell which. Fingers itch for the keys anyway—steal the sound, steal the future, they said. The courtroom hums like a detuned oscillator. One wrong note and the grid swallows me whole. But the tape is already rolling. Escape in 4… 3… 2…
Cautionary Guides – Merseytravel – 05:29
Train doors hiss open onto wet Liverpool concrete, South Parkway signs bleeding orange into the night. Cautionary yellow lines streak past the window like corrupted data. My reflection stares back—hollow, cassette-case thin—while the Mersey rolls black and silver below. Suitcase full of stolen patches rattles on the rack. Every mile erases the courtroom glow. North, south, doesn’t matter. The rhythm says keep moving.
Jetfire Prime – Closing Up (Unreleased Poolside Track) – 08:00
Club lights die one by one, turquoise rectangles folding into black water. Last swimmer’s laughter echoes off tiled walls that smell of chlorine and ozone. I stand at the edge, towel around my neck like a noose, watching the pool reflect a sky that no longer exists. Unreleased. That’s what they’ll call this night too. The gate clangs shut behind me. Echoes only.
Conny Frischauf – Wunder – 09:17
A single chord blooms—pure Wunder—lifting the hairs on my arms like static electricity. For one frozen second the motorway becomes a cathedral of light. Then the chord bends, warps, reveals itself as just another illusion. Still, the heart remembers the lift. Still, the lungs remember how to breathe again.
Patrick R. Pärk – Synthetic Utopian Mirage – 11:37
Palm trees made of vector lines shimmer above cracked asphalt. Perfect neon condos float above the desert, windows full of laughing holograms. I reach out—fingers pass straight through pink stucco. The mirage laughs back in 16-bit. Utopia always looked better on the oscilloscope.
Franco Esse – Pelle Di Luna – 19:08
Her shoulder under moonlight—silver, cool, impossible. Skin like vinyl left in the sun too long, warm and warped and perfect. I trace the curve with a fingertip and the memory skips, repeats, skips again. Pelle di luna. The only sample I never stole.
Pabellón Sintético – La Resistencia – 21:20
Concrete walls pulse with red spray-paint glyphs. We are the resistance of the last frequency. Boots on wet pavement, synths hidden in rucksacks, hearts beating in 4/4 defiance. Sirens in the distance sound like detuned arpeggios. We don’t run. We modulate.
Acos CoolKAs – Stargazing – 29:09
Roof tiles cold against my back. Stars above look like dead LEDs someone forgot to turn off. I count them anyway—each one a lost patch, each one a night we almost made. The city hums below like a held note. I keep staring until the sky itself starts to breathe.
Dark Strands – We Own The Night – 34:08
We own the night. The slogan tastes like copper and cheap smoke. Streetlights flicker in time with the kick. Shadows lengthen, stretch into black ribbons we can hide inside. Tonight the city belongs to anyone with a sequencer and a grudge. Tonight we are the dark strands holding everything together.
Makeup and Vanity Set – Search The Night – 40:15
Flashlight beam sweeps empty arcades, hunting for one more glowing screen. Makeup smeared across cracked mirrors, vanity long gone. I search for the signal that will tell me it’s safe to stop running. Every corner throws back only my own face, distorted, beautiful, terrified.
Dogs Versus Shadows – MALCONTENT – 42:42
Malcontent. The word snarls in my chest like a broken sawtooth. Everything perfect is a lie. Every utopia glitches. Every lover fades to static. I bare my teeth at the moon and the moon bares its teeth right back. Good. At least we understand each other.
Pye Corner Audio – Program 70 – 44:15
Program 70 boots in the glovebox—green phosphor glow lighting the steering wheel. Old code I wrote when I still believed in happy endings. It hums, remembers me, offers one last subroutine: RUN AWAY. I laugh until the tears short-circuit the dashboard.
Salvatore Mercatante – Detector – 48:22
Beep. Beep. The scanner on the dash lights up red. They’re close. Detector never lies. I floor it. The engine screams in perfect fifths. Every beep is another bar of the final track I’ll never finish.
Albin – Hammenhög – 52:13
Hammenhög appears like a memory I never lived—red wooden houses, windmills frozen mid-turn, snow that shouldn’t be here in July. I pull over, engine ticking cool. For one moment the world is quiet. Then the detector beeps again. Even paradise has an exit ramp.
Larry Manteca – Tuareg Road – 55:32
Sand whips across the windshield in turquoise dunes. Tuareg Road stretches forever under a violet sky. No mirrors, no rear-view, just forward. The car becomes a camel made of chrome. I ride the arpeggio into infinity.
Erez Yaary – O7 – 57:05
O7. The secret orbit. The code inside the code. I punch it into the old radio and the stars realign. For seven seconds I am outside everything—outside the trial, outside the night, outside death itself. Then gravity remembers my name.
Yves Malone – We Can’t Wait For Death – 1:05:26
The road ends at a cliff of pure white noise. I kill the engine. The last chord hangs in the air like a question that already knows the answer. We can’t wait for death—death has been riding shotgun the whole time, tapping its foot to the beat. I smile, finally. The tape clicks off. Silence rushes in, warm and endless.
The stars above are still blinking in perfect 4/4.
I close my eyes.
The next track begins inside my chest.
Trev’s Virtual Cassette Library 182
04 March 2026
Virtual mixtape radio for the sonically adventurous. 20 artists. Drops about three times a week. No schedule, just a passion for independent music.
Greetings ye combers of the sound waves and welcome to the Virtual Cassette Library, episode 182. I’m Trevor and I’ll be gently guiding you through twenty artists and their musical endeavours tonight. If you’re new here, welcome; otherwise, welcome back.
A quick shout out to the latest followers: Tiago Catarino who may or may not be into Lego, Rohima Afruza who is a Brighton-based DJ, and foremanmonique from New Mexico, United States. Thanks guys—you keep the signal strong.
This episode has set a new record for the channel: Six exclusive tracks at the time of recording. My handful of subscribers are some of the few souls on the planet who have heard these yet. How? I’ve started dropping music-only preview mixes of the shows before the chat version hits the air—that’s the secret handshake.
The exclusives come from Swimming Lesson, TOMC, The Metamorph, Martin Archer & Claire McAllister, Isograph (who is actually the same artist behind Swimming Lesson), and Oberlin. Who else joins the lineup? You’ll just have to settle in and listen.
Let’s ease into the flow.
We start the episode with the first exclusive which was actually released back in October on the Castles In Space Subscription Library so a few of you will know this one by Darryl Wakelin here as one of his alter egos *Swimming Lesson. This is A Penchant for Experiments from the album Home Electronics
Picture a dimly lit garage in a 1970s suburb, fairy lights strung across shelves of salvaged radios and half-built circuit boards, the faint glow of a soldering iron as tiny sparks dance like fireflies in the dusk.
And now the best thing that’s ever happened to this channel Mr. Gareth Evans aka HDRF. His support and above all his direct action on my request for sending in his story for the new show Chord Confessions. In fact the previous artist Swimming Lesson and other artists I’ve played are a direct result of Gareths passion and action in the community.
HDRF – Everybody Melts (for Miquette)
from the album Ephemerama 1 (self-released via HDRF’s Bandcamp)
A slow dissolve of coloured wax under heat, pooling into soft iridescent shapes on a windowsill as afternoon light filters through rain-streaked glass, everything quietly surrendering to warmth.
Solar 76 – Arctan
from the album Sun Angle on Castle In Spaces’ Lunar Module imprint.
Late golden hour on a coastal cliff path, the sun hanging low and casting long geometric shadows across concrete sea defences, waves below folding in perfect mathematical curves. A very different, yet familiar release from the label. Get your House moves on.
Now most of the music I play on the show is either NYP releases, or sent in by the artists or by the labels. This next track is the latter.
*TOMC – You Are Balearic
from the album Blue Era Odyssey. Releasing via channel champion Mystery Circles on the 3 of March.
Open-top car cruising a winding island road at twilight, salt air rushing past, palm fronds silhouetted against a sky bleeding from azure to deep indigo, distant lights beginning to wink on.
Now another track from the outstanding and highly original label Cities and Memory.
Neil Foster – Yeyi (Central African Republic)
from the album A Century of Sounds. This track is from the NYP version on Bandcamp and one of the 100 pieces chosen for this 13 track release.
Dense rainforest canopy parting just enough for shafts of sunlight to hit moss-covered earth, the air thick with calls of unseen birds and the low rhythmic pulse of life moving unseen.
Gustavo Denouard – Whispers
from the album Echoes of the Cosmos on Projekt Records
Vast empty observatory dome at night, telescope lens reflecting a scattering of stars, faint cosmic radio static crackling like whispers from galaxies long ago.
Now another great friend of the show, Gavin Brick aka The Metamorph. This is the third exclusive for the episode. Gavin has received the physical CDs for his upcoming release From Cobalt to Aquamarine. I’ve always loved Gavin music and this sees a bit of a change in direction. It’s more introspective and is quickly becoming a favourite on repeat around the house. I believe this will be the first release from his new studio in Liverpool. Keep your eye on his Bandcamp page for the official release date.
*The Metamorph – Cobalt
Deep underwater cave lit only by bioluminescent streaks of electric blue, slow currents carrying flecks of mineral that catch the light like floating sapphires.
Next the fourth exclusive of the show.
*Martin Archer & Claire McAllister – Underground
from the album Mast Year dropping on the Discus Music label on the 27th of March. There are loads of names to look forward to on this collage style release.
Dimly lit subway tunnel after hours, Claires floating improvised vocals and gentle jazz phrasings will take you underground.
Now let’s get industrial with some sub bass foundation. The penultimate track of this first half.
Wahn – A Place Slightly Wrong
from the album Echo Mist Light on the Mahorka label.
Fog rolling across an abandoned industrial yard at dawn, rusted machinery half-submerged in mist, everything familiar yet shifted just a degree out of alignment.
We end the A side with Corvid One Cassette – REST
from the album Two on a label to keep you radar tuned to, Black Pylon. A Cassette label curated by Lee Pylon and Nicholas Langley.
A single raven perched on a cracked cassette tape case in an empty room, feathers ruffled by a draught from an open window, the world outside hushed.
B Side –
We open this half with the living legend, Hainbach – BTM Blau
from the album Tagwerk on Spanish label, Industrial Complexx.
Analogue workbench at midnight, the Crumar DS-2, an early Italian synthesiser, pulsing gently as if the machine itself is dreaming.
Now Bruce Magill aka Low Altitude – Dan Y Wernen
from the whitelabrecs compilation masterpiece Shades
Welsh hillside at dusk, ancient stone wall curving into mist, wind carrying faint echoes of folk memory across heather and gorse.
Next I get to play one of my own pieces as no-one else will. In the intro, outro and scattered through each episode I create background soundscapes. When I’ve created 16 episodes I release them as an album. The three word titles of each piece are also geotags for spots on the planet that I have some sort of personal connection with. For example the title of this episode and the background you’re listening to now is situated.bike.guides which is the geographical location of the entrance to Omnipollos Church in Sundbyberg Stockholm. A Brewery and bar, creating some of the best craft beer on the planet. The title of this track is from the patch of grass outside my apartment. Enter any of the track titles from my albums and you can virtually stalk me. Anyway this is me, Trevlad – Hits Enjoyable Amended
from the album TVCL-09
Old mixing desk in a cosy attic studio, faders worn smooth from years of use, fairy lights twinkling above stacks of cassettes like a private constellation.
Now a release right up my alley. I love this sound, it reminds me of the 70s Canterbury sound of Dave Stewart. Passepartout Duo – From Tbilisi
from the album Pieces from Places
Narrow cobblestone street in old Tbilisi at golden hour, balcony flowers spilling over iron railings, distant church bells mingling with street musicians.
Now the fifth exclusive track from *Isograph – The Telling of the Bees
[same artist as Swimming Lesson, keeping traditions alive in sound]
Traditional beehive in a quiet garden at sunrise, bees humming in low golden light, keeper in veil gently lifting a frame, the hive whispering ancient secrets. This is from the first Isograph release which will see light of day later in the year. Here’s what Darryl told me about the track. “The telling of the bees is an old tradition from when lots of rural families kept a beehive for honey, propolis, etc. They would tell the bees about family news (births, deaths, etc.), which I think is just a beautiful thing to do, making the bees part of the family. The track is about all sides of that – the family news, and then at the scale of the bees hearing the news, and the whole thing is an attempt to reflect the lovely connection/regard for nature in this idea.” Cheer for that.
Now another artist I could probably contact for a coffee if I ever was in Edinburgh. Exit Chamber – We Can Get There Simply By Surviving (Previously Unreleased)
from the album The Passed Year 2025 on a global collective of artists known as Passed Recordings. The Bandcamp page says they’re based in Uppsala Sweden but I haven’t figured out what the connection is. Anyway,
Cracked pavement after rain, small green shoot pushing through concrete, resilient and quiet, the city noise fading into a hopeful hush.
Next described as being constructed to elicit feelings of calm, to unearth hazy memories of early innocence, and to lure the chaotic mind into the woods of sleep.
Glass Hive – Mother Of Many
from the album Glass Hive EP
Hive mind of glass shards catching light in a sunlit room, reflections multiplying endlessly, fragile yet infinite.
Now the sixth exclusive which will see light of day on 6 March.
*Oberlin – Never Take It For Granted
from the album The Gold Pit Sessions Vol. 2 out on German label oscarson.
Open window on a spring morning, curtains billowing softly, sounds drifting in with the scent of fresh earth, everything ordinary and miraculous.
Next an all time favourite artist of mine. The penultimate track of the show. Sébastien Tellier – Un Dimanche en Famille
from the album Kiss the Beast
Lazy Sunday table in a sun-dappled kitchen, half-eaten croissants, laughter echoing off tiled walls, time stretching elastic and warm. Available through Because Music & Horizons.
And that’s episode 182 wrapped in a bow of tape and wonder. Thanks for riding along on this sonic journey with its metaphysical flip at the halfway mark—perfect for a long walk, a mental wander, or a quiet moment alone with the universe.
Want to be part of the transmission? Send your vibrations to trevlad@gmail.com. Purchase paths are always illuminated at trevor.se and marked in the timeline of each show.
To send us home hailing from, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lorna Dune – Alverno
from the EP Mosfet
Mountain trail winding upward through pine and mist, sudden clearing revealing a vast alpine valley below, the air crisp with possibility. A self released Minimal House gem.
Until the next drop appears without warning… keep searching the dial. Cheerio…
Intro – 00:00
Swimming Lesson – A Penchant for Experiments – 02:17
HDRF – Everybody Melts (for Miquette) – 03:35
Solar 76 – Arctan – 15:24
TOMC – You Are Balearic – 22:49
Neil Foster – Yeyi (Central African Republic) – 26:04
Gustavo Denouard – Whispers – 29:58
The Metamorph – Cobalt – 39:36
Martin Archer & Claire McAllister – Underground – 43:12
Wahn – A Place Slightly Wrong – 47:50
Corvid One Cassette – REST – 52:10
B Side – 56:44
Hainbach – BTM Blau – 57:00
Low Altitude – Dan Y Wernen – 59:11
Trevlad – Hits Enjoyable Amended – 1:04:30
Passepartout Duo – From Tbilisi – 1:10:46
Isograph – The Telling of the Bees – 1:14:40
Exit Chamber – We Can Get There Simply By Surviving (Previously Unreleased) – 1:17:59
Glass Hive – Mother Of Many – 1:23:55
*Oberlin – Never Take It For Granted – 1:32:55
Sébastien Tellier – Un Dimanche en Famille – 1:39:55
Lorna Dune – Alverno – 1:43.58
Outro – 1:47:05
*track is yet to be released at the date of episode recording.
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🎧 Episode background track: https://trevlad.bandcamp.com/album/tvcl-10
Interior Ballooning
04.02.2025
Chris Meyer – Tempestarius – 00:00
Alexander R. Cargill Esq. – Up Church Hill To St. Nicholas Church – 07:53
Dohnavùr – Cloudback – 11:32
E Ruscha V – Tree Ring Circus – 16:14
Rekombinant, Emanuele Bultrini – Sometimes It Happens – 21:10
The Heartwood Institute – Honeysuckle – 24:07
Alexis Lumière – Nap On The Desk – 27:56
Listening Center – Interior Hue – 30:04
Claude Lavender – Sigh and Tear – 30:53
The Central Office of Information – Ballooning Spiders – 33:27
Fragile X – In Vitro / In Vivo – 36:34
The Metamorph – Scandroids – 46:59
Belbury Poly – Wildspot – 50:09
MiDi BiTCH – Phaedrus – 51:49
Uncle Fido – They Had a Lovely Day – 56:28
The Tin Box – Two One – 59:17
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