Twenty-five years ago, I would have never guessed that the bedroom recording aesthetic would eventually overlap with the ska scene. But, in 2022, you have Kmoy and Tape Girl, who are referring to their music as "Laptop Ska," which it turns out, is a great descriptor. Their recordings carry the lo-fi, compressed quality of 4-track indie-rock artists, but it somehow blends with these grandiose concepts and overdubs galore.
Kmoy and Tape Girl are two separate projects. But they are best friends and play on each other's songs. And they are creating some of the most interesting, adventurous recordings in ska right now. Tape Girl's handful of EPs are unique and fantastic, while Kmoy's Precure LP is a Ska Opera of epic proportions. The thing that makes all of their recordings so interesting is that, unlike most ska artists, these are songs crafted on their computer with no consideration for how they will sound live, kind of like the early Bomb the Music Industry records.
In this episode, we get into the nitty-gritty of their production techniques. They are firm believers in adding tape hiss to the recordings. We also talk about friend-to-every-ska-band, Megawave, and all the various eclectic artists that influence Kmoy and Tape Girl: Car Seat Headrest, Fantasia, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Who, Dynastic, and of course Skatune Network.