We’ll stop writing about Z Tapes as soon as Filip and Co. stop releasing great music from all over the world. It doesn’t look like that day is coming any time soon though. To keep the winning streak going they’ve teamed up with the good peeps over at Cereal + Sounds to release FRY YR BRN, a benefit compilation based on theme songs of the televisual variety.
With an array of styles and influences across the twenty-three songs, there truly is something for everyone. Try Isabel Rex‘s oddly melancholic ode to amusing genetic copies of famous people, MagicPerm’s blissed-out memorial of a forgotten Toon Disney gem and WTD favs Nice Legs‘ surf rock anthem for everybody’s favourite infant puppets. Or maybe you’d prefer Queer Jane’s take on those meddling kids, Lake Michigan‘s bummed-out nod to a semi-fictional Will Smith or Ainsworth’s tribute to Mister Rodgers (and his inspirational acceptance speech)?
Elsewhere, Casper Heyzeus attack their pizza-loving effort with the hyperactive energy of child actors in action figure TV commercials, IZE offer something strange and sultry enough to make Lynch himself proud and Pet Cemetery takes the theme of your teenage angst and makes it seem insular and strange, a song for one of Orange County’s outsiders who never appeared on screen because they were always locked in their gloomy bedroom playing records.
In other words, this is a near-enough perfect compilation for those of us who grew up under the ever-present bombardment of photon-based entertainment. Listen to the whole thing below and let nostalgia burn through the white noise of your image narcosis:
FRY YR BRN is out on the 22nd April and you can buy in now from the Z Tapes Bandcamp page or their online store. All digital sales will go to a Slovakian charity helping survivors of domestic abuse and children without a proper home.
Artwork by Mimi Jaffe