BLACK WICK's "magnetic tape bloom" is 2:23 of lo-fi from a lost 1991 Fright Nights VHS
This week's pick is the 2:23 third track of BLACK WICK's twelve-track FRIGHT NIGHTS at Universal Studio's Orlando in 1991 [VHS COPY] — Florida lo-fi made from found tape, out on Halloween on Illuminated Paths as a cassette edition of 13, with a direct link to listen.
BLACK WICK's FRIGHT NIGHTS at Universal Studio's Orlando in 1991 [VHS COPY] came out on 31 October 2026 on the Florida label Illuminated Paths: twelve tracks, 46 minutes. 1
Start with track three, "magnetic tape bloom", which runs 2:23. 2
Genre tag
The first tag on this record is lo-fi, and lo-fi names a way of recording. Wikipedia defines it as a production quality where "elements usually regarded as imperfections" are present, "sometimes as a deliberate stylistic choice". 3
Its examples are tape hiss and degraded audio signals. 3
Since the 1980s the word has also carried cassette culture and the DIY ethic of punk; twelve tracks in an edition of 13 tapes sits squarely in that history. 3
The rest of the tag list runs experimental, ambient, beat, dark, electronic, glitch, haunted, noise, pop, score, synth, vapor and vaporwave, plus Florida. 1
Music assembled from old broadcast tape has its own word: hauntology, which Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher adapted from Jacques Derrida. 4 Reynolds describes it as a "largely British genre of eerie electronics fixated on ideas of decaying memory and lost futures". 4
This record reaches for "haunted" among its tags and leaves the theory alone. Its bracketed "[VHS COPY]" is the claim about its own source, and the artist's note says the album was "ripped from some old lost and found VHS locally". 1
Who is BLACK WICK
The name belongs to one person in Florida: Joshua Rogers, who has released as Black Wick since at least 2019. 5 Orlando Weekly described him in 2024 as the "Illuminated Paths label visionary and Broken Machine Films video artist". 6
His 2019 record states the method in its own credits: "utilizing only found sounds, created lofi analog effects and cassette to cassette manipulation/layering". 5
That record is Fever Nightmare, two side-long pieces of 21:23 each, released on 31 October 2019. 5
The collaborations came next. Ch.SRFR_X I gathered over 70 guest spots across 23 tracks and reached CD in March 2023. 7
Its cassette version followed on 10 September 2026 in an edition of 25, adding a bonus track that the CD did not carry. 8
The series has a written premise, signed "-BW.":
a universal/time/dimensional traveler [aka Ch.SRFR_X] comes within signal range of Earth and its vast communication satellites and information relays. 8
The gear list repeats almost word for word across the two records: an SP404, a Mother32, an Akai XR20, a Panasonic VAS, an FM4 Filter Modeler, and two named objects, BODHI the Plazma Ball and POWD(H)ER the Tesla Coil. 18
Rogers's own label, Illuminated Paths, has 981 releases on its Bandcamp page. 1
Why this release stands out this week
FRIGHT NIGHTS went up on Halloween, 31 October 2026. 1
It carries the same date as Fever Nightmare, seven years earlier. 5
The title points at something real. Universal Studios Florida opened in 1990, and the park's first Halloween event ran for three nights, 25, 26 and 31 October 1991, as Universal Studios Fright Nights, with one haunted house called The Dungeon of Terror. 9
Universal renamed the event Halloween Horror Nights for 1992 and advertised it as the second annual one. 9
The artist's own note calls the record a "newly minted spooky studio session album", and the tape blurb calls the sound "industrial vapor goth wave". 1
The track titles carry the register: "reception iffy at best...", "a seperation of reality planes" (spelled that way on the page), "half way into a cubed space without entrances or exits or windows". 1
The tape is an edition of 13, ships within seven days, and costs $10. The download is $10 or more at 16-bit/48kHz. 1
Start here
At 2:23, "magnetic tape bloom" is one of four tracks here under three minutes, and its title describes what the record does to its source. 1
Second stop: the opener, "reception iffy at best...", 33 seconds that set the frame for everything after it. 1
Third stop: "jam matrix intersection patch overload", 11:37, a quarter of the record in one piece. 1
The whole album streams on Bandcamp before you buy anything. 1
Press play on "magnetic tape bloom" first, then let the 11:37 piece answer whether the tape damage holds up over the long form.
References
- 1FRIGHT NIGHTS at Universal Studio's Orlando in 1991 (VHS COPY) | BLACK WICK
illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com
- 2magnetic tape bloom | BLACK WICK
illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com
- 3Lo-fi music | Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 4Hauntology (music) | Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 5Fever Nightmare | Black Wick
illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com
- 6
- 7Ch.SRFR_X I | Black Wick
illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com
- 8Ch.SRFR_X I (CASSETTE VERSION) | BLACK WICK
illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com
- 9Universal's Halloween Horror Nights | Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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