Trev’s Virtual Cassette Library 296
www.mixcloud.com/djsofabed/tvcl-296/
Good day, listeners… or should I say, travellers of the tape.
Trevor here. You’ve pressed play on another fragile spool of the Virtual Cassette Library. Twelve-track virtual cassettes that flips themselves at the halfway mark.
If you make music, or run a label, and fancy a place in the library, send your links or Bandcamp codes to trevlad@gmail.com. I read every one. Promise.
Tips and subscriptions keep the reels turning. Every little helps the library stay open after dark.
A cosmic, slightly archival ambient journey through uncharted quadrants, greenhouse arks, and nine worlds below.
Side A drifts from exclusive galactic isolation and catalystic dreaming into a lumbering poem-machine, last-forest arks, Portuguese hardware colour, and hymns that give everything they have. Side B opens in guitar-and-harmony tranquility, then moves through Kosmische hover, shadow-planet rework, Niflhel depths, a vacation-light response, and ends in a slanted average where nothing needs proving.
Overall mood: Expansive, contemplative, and quietly generous — full of star-aimed memory, analogue drive, and safe mediocrity. Perfect for deep listening, late hours, or sitting still while the tape finds its own orbit.
The shows remain free for the first week, then slip quietly into the hands of my Mixcloud subscribers, who currently have over eleven hundred other episodes waiting for them whenever the mood strikes. Subscribers receive the expanding series of 3-hour adventures titled Veil Frequencies. They also get the ever-growing advance version of the forthcoming compilation Quiet Figures.
The tape unspools its visions.
00:01:17 (EXCLUSIVE) deepspace – Atlas Minor – POLY=VISTAS
An exclusive track. unknown release date. on Projekt Records.
deepspace – Atlas Minor – POLY=VISTAS. Mirko Ruckels drifts through uncharted galactic quadrants. Brisbane rooms send German-born space-ambient into exclusive cosmic isolation.
00:07:55 Ancient Astronaut – Catalystic Mind
Ancient Astronaut – Catalystic Mind. Atmospheric electronic soundscapes open for relaxation and dreaming. Half the proceeds travel to Ekukhanyeni’s early-childhood work in South Africa.
00:11:17 Le Morte d’Abby – A Poem
Le Morte d’Abby – A Poem. Acid-based skitter and dueling melodies move at one hundred and thirty bpm. Forlorn pads give way to a lumbering Miyazaki machine of metal-on-wood.
00:18:29 vOLKER rAPP – The arks Berkshire, Valley Forge, Sequoia and Mojave
vOLKER rAPP – The arks Berkshire, Valley Forge, Sequoia and Mojave. ARP 2600 and SEM colours from a 1974 television memory. Greenhouse domes hold Earth’s last forests among Trumbull stars.
00:24:17 Cool Science – Tenshin
Cool Science – Tenshin. Portuguese Polysix, Minilogue XD, Digitone, Digitakt and Syntakt join SLIT ART.
00:30:04 rec – giving you all i got
rec – giving you all i got. Hymns for a fading world gather handprints on dust. Shared memory aims at the stars.
The cassette reaches its midpoint and turns.
00:34:52 (EXCLUSIVE) James McKeown – Tranquility
James McKeown – Tranquility. After eight years as Hawksmoor, acoustic and electric guitars meet layered synths. Cloud of Unknowing carries intimate vocal harmony toward 25 September.
00:37:38 Conrad Schnitzler – 2:08
Conrad Schnitzler – 2:08. Melodies hover. Layers move with Kosmische drive. Flip-Flap and Fonodroom send CON’s focused energy outward.
00:39:33 Brandon Locher – Rahu Ketu (Salvatore Mercatante Rework)
Brandon Locher – Rahu Ketu (Salvatore Mercatante Rework). A 264-day planetary cycle. Shadow planets drawn in ink and coloured pencil. Taylor Deupree mastering.
00:44:42 Lee Anthony Norris & Árni Grétar – Into All Of The Nine Worlds Below Niflhel
Into All Of The Nine Worlds Below Niflhel. A fifty-minute piece yields this excerpt. Futuregrapher’s Icelandic ambient and techno presence remains in the mix.
00:52:03 Gareth Jones – 53_StOlaves : Response
Gareth Jones – 53_StOlaves : Response. Impermanence understood as transformation. A spontaneous reply to Catharsis, vacation light on the photograph.
01:01:27 (EXCLUSIVE) Mike Hans STEFFL – slanted average
An exclusive track. Release date September 2nd, 2026 on the AURAL FILMS label.
Mike Hans STEFFL – slanted average. Berlin School and ambient tones explore mediocrity as a safe space. Sounds envelop. You need prove nothing here.
The visions complete their circle.
The oxide continues its quiet journey until the end of the spool.
Also in the works: the next compilation, Quiet Figures, release date 26 September.
Uncover the narratives whispered by the silent, ever-present figures that shadow us, through compositions that unravel their hidden mysteries.
Does that stir anything?
Send entries to trevlad@gmail.com
Include artist name, track name, and a link to other work.
Deadline: 24 September.
This has been The Virtual Cassette Library, episode 296.
Travel safely between the tracks.
I’ll meet you on the other side of the next spool.
Trevlad Sounds 