The Cassettes

The Cassettes started in 1999 as an outlet for Shelby Cinca's four-track recordings, material that had no business ending up on a Frodus record. The early lineup included Dead Meadow's Steve Kille and pulled from a different well entirely: power-pop, 70s rock, psychedelia, and anything that felt like the opposite of teeth-gritting post-hardcore.

The lineup shifted significantly after the first two albums, settling into a rotating cast of multi-instrumentalists that came to include Stephen Guidry on accordion and synthesizer, percussionist Saadat Awan on drums and tabla, and Arthur Harrison, a DC-area electronic musician who had been building oscillators and theremins since the 1980s and was literally recruited from the audience at a show. At its fullest, the band's instrument list ran to resonator guitar, theremin, analog synths, banjo, accordion, and tabla.

'Neath the Pale Moon (Buddyhead, 2006), produced with longtime Frodus collaborator Jonathan Kreinik, was the clearest statement of what the band had become: something that resisted simple "rock" categorization, and was entirely unconcerned about it.