Visions by Jar

Jar "Visions" (Jarmusic, 1984)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRwdWygJHbg

Alien Success Stories #6 is out! This time, we travel to Berlin and into the world of Joachim Reinbold and his Jarmusic label. From 1982 until its end in 2007, Jarmusic was a small but mighty champion of underground music the world over. Acts like The Legendary Pink Dots, Cleaners from Venus, R. Stevie Moore, The Deep Freeze Mice etc all had releases on and were promoted heavily by Reinbold’s label. His annual Berlincassette and Collage compilations promoted the music of hundreds of musicians and bands beyond the Jarmusic roster. In the mid to late 80s, he also recorded his own solo musical projects under the name Jar. Throughout many cassette releases (and truly only on cassettes), Reinbold explored pop sensibilities with additional synth and sampling work. In particular, Visions’ minimal synth vibe is brightened immensely by live instrumentation and Reinbold’s expressive vocals. I find the Jar/Jarmusic universe infinitely fascinating and influential. As off-the-radar as it may seem, the music springing from the community that Reinbold took part in remains incredibly important and vital today. With the help of Drew Ryan’s cobbling together of the artwork via some dusty Discogs scans, I wanted to help people to see and hear a piece of Jarmusic in its intended format.

*Orders will begin shipping week of 5/11. Thanks for your patience!

**INTERNATIONAL ORDERS WILL HAVE TO PAY NORMAL, UNDERSTANDABLY COST-PROHIBITIVE SHIPPING RATES. I APOLOGIZE ON BEHALF OF THE USA AND THE USPS : (

***I’m having to sell these a bit higher cost than past ASS releases due to having had these tapes professionally duplicated.

****Alien Success Stories is a bootleg label. This tape is an unauthorized reissue, an edition of 50. These editions are sold at cost+shipping to ensure that Alien Success Stories continues to exist and reproduce these recordings without profit. The goal is to bring these hard-to-find, cassette-based gems to light and provide them to a new audience via their original format. I think a lot about the bootleg and how amazingly important (and complicated and problematic) it’s been in music and beyond. I want to keep these versions on A.S.S. as purely appreciative/homage and low-impact as I can.