Cassette Review: "Quality Time Vol. 1" v/a (Bonding Tapes)

[$6.06 // Edition of 100 // ]https://bondingtapes.bandcamp.com/album/quality-time-vol-1

For regular readers of Raised by Gypsies you will know that one of my least favorite things to review are compilations because I feel like a) One song isn't always enough to get to know someone and b) I feel like I have to explain a little bit about every song and it seems to me to become tidious as I seemingly type a sentence or two about each artist and try to call it a review.    Luckily for me- and you, my dear readers- Bonding Tapes has made reviewing this compilation rather easy because of the unity and quality involved in it.

The only artist I knew on here going in is Tim Cosner and that's only because this was sent to me with the Tim Cosner cassette for which I know him.   The other artists are all new to me- and Tim Cosner still does feel new to me as well in some ways- and I just feel like this is what a really great mixed tape would sound like.   Imagine it being the time before the compact disc (or even during that time people were still making mixed tapes before we had the technology to burn onto CDs) and someone handing you a cassette of their favorite artists.

Now imagine these artists flawlessly going through track after track of electronic bliss with some audio samples, horns and even elements of synthwave mixed in.   It's got vocals at times but overall just remains blissed out.   Even though the drumming and Kung Fu Panda type effects the loops within here keep me on Cloud 9.   And why shouldn't they?  It certainly feels like the artists on here had fun making these songs and as such they are just a lot of fun to listen to as well.

One thing I can't help but notice on this mixed tape- because I think of it as being that over a compilation- is that all of these songs just sound so deliberate in their placement.   I feel like each artist was given advance notice of what their song would come before and after on the cassette but that can't be possible because the songs would have had to be recorded in order so you couldn't tell Spot 2 what Spot 3 sounded like until Spot 3 knew what Spot 2 and Spot 4 were going to sound like and none of them had been made yet.

It's just amazing the way that a series of songs can come together and on an album of ten or twelve songs these days it's not always the easiest thing to come by anymore.   When you have a mixed tape such as this, you could very easily enjoy it while still hearing each song as its own track.   The way that these songs flow together as a cohesive unit with the various artists is nothing short of a miracle and this is obviously a cassette you should be rocking.