DarkArc006
Our first tee/merch, a future classic
48KT
The first merch from The Tapes is obviously a tee!
While we’re all locked in the basement twiddling knobs and staring in bafflement at patch bays, I Live Night by Night (NxN) head-honcho Hana Nachtenbel is scheming how she can spread the word about what we’re all up to.
As a person who wants to get things done, she knows not to ask us about promotion, so rather she told us we needed our first merch item, and that Rei at FugaceFugace was already on the case, and there would be no further discussions. Not that we mind, Rei’s studio totally gets us, and so of course when it arrived, it was a doozy.
“The Datura Tapes really aren’t like any label I’ve known,” Hana says from her New York base. “So Rei thought the first physical, non-music ‘thing’ they released should be more manifesto than merch. The truth… is such a powerful statement, that, really it was a no-brainer that it was on the front. They live by it, it’s who they are.”
The resulting garment is less of a product and more of a conceptual artifact. Emblazoned with the uncompromising ethos of the collective, it mirrors the raw, structural integrity of the audio coming out of the studio. It acts as a calling card for the uninitiated and a uniform for those already tuned into the signal.
By bypassing the traditional commercial route, Hana and Rei have turned our first tangible footprint into a definitive flag planted in the ground.
“More manifesto than merch”
