Tense Forms

800 Winters is coming soon to Chicago. It’s a showcase featuring 25 visual artists, 5 musical artists, and a short play. We’ll celebrate Radiant Darling‘s new release, Cryptomnesia. The Notes and Scratches, Casey Meehan, Ben Clarke (of Lying in States), and Andy Wagner will be there too. Marika Mashburn and Chris Matthews of the House Theatre will perform Mashburn’s new play frost. There will be art all up over the place.

It’ll be awesome. Seriously. It’s Saturday, January 28th at the Subterranean. Stop by the site for more information or get your tickets online now.

the Notes and Scratches’ debut album Uh-Oh is now available in the Tense Forms Store for just $10 postpaid.

We’re also pretty excited to announce that we’ve increased the quality of all the MP3 downloads in our store. All of our songs are now encoded with LAME, considered by many to be the best MP3 encoder. The files are variable bit rate, generally ranging from 190 kbps to 245 kbps, resulting in top quality sound at small file sizes. These settings are considered to be transparent, meaning you’re unlikely to hear any loss in quality even on high-end equipment.

For a preview of this improved quality, head over to Tense Radio and listen to any of the Notes and Scratches songs in HI-FI, or choose the download option.

If you purchased an album from us with a lower bit rate, you can upgrade for free. Just send us an email with your name and any other information that may help us look up your order.

Join us for the 2nd Annual Culture of Fear this Saturday, October 22nd, 8:00 PM at Open End Gallery. Tense Forms and Scary Bodega present an evening of film, art, and music featuring Chris Fuller’s score for Nosferatu, pre-show music by Annie Coleman, a short film by Kate Raney, photography and paintings by Kirk Bravender and Kelly Reynolds, music by the Notes and Scratches and DJ sets by C. Israel Vines and Marcus Battista. $6 donation. BYOB. Costumes are highly encouraged—this is a Macabre Ball my pretties! Doors at 8pm, films at 9pm and music at 11pm.

From the autumn-waking’s joshua dumas comes The Notes and Scratches. Over the course of 48 hours, and with the aid of some friends, joshua wrote and recorded several songs, and took photographs every hour. From these efforts come six songs and two slideshows, available free for your enjoyment