A while back I had a letter from Alessandro Crestani, who told me he was considering starting a tape label, and asked me for advice on doing this. Well, I'm really flattered to think that I was partly responsible for spawning such a label cos it's turned out to be one of the best tape labels I know of. The music tends to be indie-pop in the widest sense, plus a few exceptions; rather like Bliss really.

The first Best Kept Secret tape was by Suretoss and was reviewed in a past issue of Aq. Next was A Pile Of Stuff by Crayola Summer, which is basically a compilation of previously released songs, but there's one track that's exclusive to this release. I only have a handful of Crayola's many tapes, so much of the stuff on here is new to me. Some of the tracks have a garage punk influence and others are otherwise noisy, but the overall sound is DIY pop. That's DIY in the best sense - home recorded but well played.

Warser Gate's Mirage was next - whilst much of this is typical Warser Gate, that is semi-melodic, crazed noisepop, this has some of the most tuneful stuff I've ever heard from Warser Gate, such as Trail Down Codetricks. There may be tunes on here but it's still warped, angular and fairly noisy. I've heard some people say that if something has a tune that makes it commercial - not a view I share, and Warser Gate are living proof that melody doesn't always equal music for a mass audience. This is indeed an acquired taste.

Broken Bits Of You And Me is a various artists tape that covers various kinds of indie-pop plus folky stuff from Lord Litter and a soul type song from Terri B. Also includes Hinton, The Waiting List, Bouquet, Moonpump, Girlboy Girl, Crayola Summer, The Flat Back 4, M-Ways, Timo, Tyderium, The Conspiracy, Vinyl Bill, Kitchen Cynics, Warser Gate, Stormclouds, This Elegant Chaos, Dropkick and Dream Baby Dream. The majority of these bands have also been on Bliss tapes, and I'm dead fussy about who I invite to be on my comps, so this says a lot about the quality of this tape. Even though I'm in contact with most of the bands here, again, there are plenty of tracks I'd not heard before.

Vinyl Bill's Too Lazy To Rock tape features various kinds of DIY pop, from atmospheric noise-pop (eg Slow Attack) to minimal melancholic songs (eg Woebegone). Evermore (Part 1) has quite a psychedelic feel, and Eastern influences are evident here in the usage of chanting and Indian sounding percussion. If You're Tired Of Being Patient You're Not Doing It Right consists of spoken word stuff (probably from films?) over the top of an instrumental with spacey effects. Vinyl Bill know the Kitchen Cynics' Alan Davidson, and they cover Mimosa on this tape. Plenty of great songs with strong tunes here, this is another one which is homemade but good quality, rather than the messy, tuneless, talentless rubbish that gives home recorded music a bad name, the sort that quite frankly, anyone could come up with.

Timo has a tape out on Best Kept Secret, called It Was More Than Communication We Lacked. Although Timo's music isn't particularly 'off the wall', I still find it quite difficult to categorise. It's not strictly pop, rock or folk but I guess it contains elements of all those genres. The songs often have bleak/dark lyrics, and the songs have titles to match, like Dark Days, Confessions Of A Killer, Covered With Ice, I'll Kill You, The Chill In Paradise ... happy-go-lucky music is what this isn't.

Gary K's tape, Hawkin' The Chalk, has 28 instrumental tracks which vary between eerie, slightly quirky and downright bizarre, even though they are based on melody rather than out-and-out experimentalism. The titles are equally odd, eg Whipped Thermometers, Her Toffees Are Soap, Launderettes Of Whiskey, The Nettle Will Settle ... these are just a few - all the titles are pretty odd. Very original music that defies categorisation in terms of genre.

The first time I heard an Orange Cake Mix song was some years ago, when there were lots of twee pop bands around. Although I was once into cute pop, it had got to a stage where I'd heard so much of the stuff, I'd kind of overdosed on its sugariness, and I chose instead to listen to noisier music. These days cute pop is scarce, and I kind of miss it now that there's less of it around. I guess it's a case of not appreciating something good until it's gone. Orange Cake Mix now have a 20 track tape out on Best Kept Secret, called Red Rose Speedway. This is still, essentially, delicate pop that occasionally reminds me of Bouquet, except it has to be said that Jim Rao is a better singer than Neil Bouquet! (Don't get me wrong, the best Bouquet songs are so good that Neil's somewhat flat voice hardly matters, but the songs I'm not so fond of kind of make the singing more obvious). What makes this Orange Cake Mix tape different to most early 90s indiepop though is that it has spacey/psychedelic/atmospheric undertones at times, so it may well appeal to those that like the more fragile side of psychedelic pop as well as fans of indiepop. I definitely appreciate this tape more than I would have done when I was going through a noisier phase.

I'd never heard of Twelfth House until I got the tape of theirs on Best Kept Secret. If they've got other stuff out I'm missing out by not having heard it cos this tape is brilliant! Six songs of above average indiepop with strong tunes and vocal harmonies - I can recommend this to all who like melodic music.

So, to sum up, anyone who's into music that's as a rule most definitely underground and uncommercial, but has well defined melodies and isn't messily played/recorded should really be getting in touch with Best Kept Secret. Send an IRC for more info to Alessandro Crestani, Via Biron Di Sotto 101, 36100 Vicenza, Italy.

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