For whatever reason, The Memory Tapes is one of those groups a bunch of us at ChinaShop all sort of stumbled upon separately and just decided that we loved. And for whatever reason Dayve Hawke’s mad and eclectic genius has garnered the attention of a lot of famous players, including Britney Spears and Phoenix — and he’s ended up doing quite a bit of remix work for all of them, so whatever he’s doing, I guess it’s working. I can’t point out exactly what it was about their first single, ‘Bicycle’, that had me so hooked, but I guess that’s what a great musician does — manages to tap that mainstream pulse and get your blood boiling for some indiscernible reason. On this particular episode of Fireside Chat, Hawke sorts through some of his main sources of inspiration: Aphex Twin, and Lindesfarne, Black Sabbath, and lo and behold — The friggin’ Cocteau Twins is his favorite band of all time? If anything, Hawke proves that he’s got an eclectic mix of genres that influenced him — many of them from the days of vinyl and cassette, which he presents on this episode remastered and re-formatted for a new era. In this case, it’s downright confusing, perhaps adding to the mystery heaped upon him by the indie media (not helped by the fact that his wikipedia page says Hawke is “known to be a recluse and is hesitant on touring, due to a fear of airplanes”). Go figure. You can get a peak inside his warped mind now at Red Bull Music Academy Radio.
