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music and audio art by Hal McGee
I have six Bandcamp sites where you can stream hundreds of albums for free and download for a minimum of $1 per album: HalTapes/Hal McGee most recent solo and collaborative works: https://halmcgee.bandcamp.com/ Cause And Effect, my 1980s cassette releases: https://causeandeffectk7.bandcamp.com/ HalTapes compilations: https://haltapescompilations.bandcamp.com/ Cassette Art Classics: https://cassetteartclassics.bandcamp.com/ Electronic Cottage compilations and other releases of the online EC community https://electroniccottage.bandcamp.com/indexpage The Museum Of Microcassette Art: https://museumofmicrocassetteart.bandcamp.com 
Click the picture to read a 70-page interview with Hal McGee by Leslie Singer, titled "The Joy Project", or download a 5 MB PDF ideal for viewing on phones, below
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Kyle Long's interview with Hal McGee that was recently broadcast on WFYI, the National Public Radio affiliate in Indianapolis, is now available as a podcast: https://www.wfyi.org/programs/cultural-manifesto/radio/hal-mcgees-underground-noise
This week on Cultural Manifesto Kyle Long talks with Hal McGee. During the 1980s, Hal and his former partner Debbie Jaffe, recorded and released groundbreaking noise music, and industrial music on an underground cassette label called Cause and Effect. Hal and Debbie operated Cause and Effect out of their small, one room apartment located at 821 N. Pennsylvania Street in Downtown Indianapolis.
Though the label functioned as a modest, do-it-yourself project, Cause and Effect had a global impact. By 1987, Cause and Effect had garnered enough notoriety to be featured prominently alongside R. Stevie Moore and Calvin Johnson of K Records in a New York Times article titled “Record-it-Yourself Music on Cassette”. Despite that recognition, Hal and Debbie were operating in almost total isolation and anonymity here in Indianapolis. In fact, Hal told me that this week’s edition of Cultural Manifesto marks the first time Cause and Effect has been covered by the Indianapolis media in the label’s nearly 40 year history. Cause and Effect deserves far greater recognition in Indianapolis. In addition to releasing music from their own projects, including Viscera, Dog as Master, and Master/Slave Relationship - Hal and Debbie also released tapes from seminal American noise music artists like Borbetomagus, and Negativland. They also issued cassettes from important European groups, including Nurse With Wound, and the French-Persian ensemble Vox Populi. Cause and Effect also compiled important anthologies, like “The Heterodox Conclusion” a collection featuring local and international electronic music recordings created by women, and “Best Text Of Japan”, a compilation of experimental Japanese music, that featured the now-iconic noise artist Merzbow. On this week’s show we’ll be listening to music Hal and Debbie recorded and released on Cause and Effect, and Hal will share his memories of the label’s origin. – Kyle Long, Cultural Manifesto WFYI | ||