Tarantula Tapes Presents: Tracknaphobia Vol. 1. (Tarantula Tapes)

What started as a releasing platform for a couple of local bands from Barry, Ontario, Canada, became a phenomenon rarely seen on a global punk rock scene. The cassettes are still desirable sound carriers among punk rockers, and the sold-out titles at Tarantula Tapes are living proof of my statement. What blows my mind over and over again is how Tarantula Tapes managed to pull out this sorcery within a year. If you pay closer attention to their Bandcamp page, you’ll notice there’s plenty of tremendous releases and bands ready to be discovered. This prolific record label brought them all together in one place, so that’s more than good evidence they’re doing a tremendous job. Tarantula Tapes decided to celebrate a year of existence with a compilation cassette that embraces all the artists they worked with in the past.

Tracknaphobia is not only an excellent wordplay but also an outstanding document of the label’s activities. It consists of 21 artists, such as Angry Spells, Lightmares, Audio Visceral, Dynowaves, Lee Resistant And The Lost, Hysterics, Witch Island, Core Bee, Cursed Arrows, Artificial Dissemination, Fox Run, Chimp Change, The Speed Humps, Zero Zero UFO, Scott Murray, Heavy Petter, Merloaded, Like A Girl, The Holdouts, DieSciFi, and B.A. Johnston. This sampler pretty much sums up the activities of Tarantula Tapes in the past twelve months. Tarantula Tapes specializes in garage punk, hardcore punk, skate punk, melodic punk rock, so the compilation pretty much covers a majority of these subgenres. During this period, the label managed to release 25 cassettes. That’s more than impressive in my book.

I am familiar with most of these artists, but some names are new to me. Therefore, samplers like these are great when you’re looking out for some new music. I tried to pick my favorites on this one, but all bands sound equally good. Actually, there’s no bad band in here. Every single one sounds awesome. Also, Tarantula Tapes made a good selection because the sampler sounds compact, dynamic, and entertaining from scratch to finish. It seems that the tunes are assembled chronologically, so you’ll get the idea of how the label released their tapes during the entire year. I have to admit that I never listened to a compilation arranged like this. Therefore, this method looks fresh, unique and it works in favor of this release, so that’s another plus in my book. Like all their releases, this compilation comes with eye-peeling illustrations, a tracklist, and all the necessary info about it. Tracknaphobia will easily become you’re favorite various artist compilation. Head over to Tarantula Tapes for more information about ordering Tracknaphobia, and also check out their other releases.