Biography
Memory Cassette produces cinematic yet danceable tracks of lush neo-disco, all wrapped in a dreamy, cosmic atmosphere. After stepping away from his earlier role as frontman of Philadelphia indie rockers Hail Social, Dayve Hawk issued a rapid series of singles in early 2009 under three closely related aliases—Weird Tapes, Memory Tapes, and Memory Cassette—the last of which he reserved for his more delicate material. While the identity behind the initial Memory Cassette EPs remained unknown online, bloggers speculated variously that a woman handled the vocals or that a full band was involved, until the project was traced to a phoneless, carless, computerless 28-year-old house dad living in southern New Jersey. A natural recluse, Hawk has long retreated into music as a coping mechanism, having taken up drums at age nine and begun home recording by fourteen. From his extensive archive of personal tapes he assembled 2009’s Call & Response on an unusual premise, letting two songs captured at eighteen serve as the “call” and two further pieces recorded ten years later act as the “response.” A limited pressing of five hundred hard copies sold out, though the EP stayed available in digital form. An avid participant in the remix scene, Hawk had already reworked tracks by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Britney Spears, and Peter Bjorn and John; reciprocally, CFCF, Friend, Sail a Whale, and Shadow Self supplied reinterpretations of his Memory Cassette songs, issued as a companion to Call & Response.
Albums