Not long after his retirement from writing about music, Invisible Oranges’ founding father, Cosmo Lee, was contacted by the excellent blog Cryogenic Husk and asked to create a mixtape that might help illustrate how this site came to be. And like Michael Jordan lacing up for the Washington Wizards, Cosmo temporarily came out of retirement to fulfill that request. (Unlike Jordan, Cosmo can still ball.) We’re posting Cosmo’s intro here, along with a link to the full post (and downloadable mixtape) at Cryogenic Husk. Enjoy!
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It’s strange to do this mixtape because I started Invisible Oranges solely for myself. What you’ll hear probably only has meaning for me. The site has grown to mean something for many. But in 2006, it was just another writing outlet for me. I was writing for print and web zines, including PopMatters and Stylus. I got more promos than I could review for others, and I wanted to write more about metal. It was also the season for MP3 blogs (remember them?). From what I could tell, there wasn’t any MP3 blog for metal. So I started one.
[A bit of trivia: The inspiration for Invisible Oranges' original logo header was Yngwie Malmsteen's Trilogy. I wanted its cover's fiery sky, but couldn't find a sufficiently large image. So I settled for a stock sky image. The Internet now yields a gloriously large scan of Trilogy's cover. So this mixtape's cover reflects my original vision for Invisible Oranges' look.]
This mixtape is a snapshot of my music tastes in fall 2006. They were products of circumstance. I had moved to Berlin, DE earlier that year. I was tired of working and had some money saved up. Berlin was cheap and allowed me time to write. I was going to techno clubs a lot. You could go clubbing any night in Berlin and have a good time. Clubs there open at midnight, no one gets there until 2, peak time is 4, and you leave at 6 or 7. Breakfast after clubbing is typical. So my hours flipped. I went to bed at 7 a.m. and got up at 3 p.m. Not knowing German, I had no friends. It was a weird time.
My tastes reflected my lifestyle. I listened to a lot of dark ambient and depressive black metal. (That was probably the “golden era” for the subgenre.) MySpace was how I discovered new music. Much of Invisible Oranges’ early content came from reaching out on MySpace and getting artists to send me CDs. Due to my location, I got lots of European demos. Berlin’s record stores were great for scoring used and obscure metal CDs. And, of course, I got promos from labels.
Because everything was on CD then, I remember much more about releases then than I do now. For example, I still remember the paper quality of Insomnium’s CD booklet, and Mick Kenney’s liner notes artwork for Napalm Death. Paper and plastic packaging is wasteful, and I don’t think we should go back to it. But I think we should rediscover — or discover — how to treasure music. That means knowing every note, every word, every detail of artwork. Alone in Berlin, I had time to do that. My memories from then are still strong. You can hear some of them here.
. . .
“It’s got riffs like Rick Perry’s got quotes.” – Cosmo
Someone give that man an award for that line!
Stoked on this! Always a fan of trips down memory lane/historical documents like this… By the way, the Urgehal riff described as sounding “like Slayer slowed down, in jackboots” is spot-fucking-on!
Fonally after a long times transmission from the masters
If you don’t think we should have paper and plastic packaging, then where the fuck do you suppose one would find a giant scan like Malmsteen’s Trilogy cover? Well thought out. Great post. Why I luv coming here.
I don’t think the point was that we should rid the world of all physical media/packaging that already exists, but that it’s more wasteful than necessary now. An image does not need to be printed and scanned to get a massive, high quality image out of it.
How I take it yes. Would be nice to have start date for no more printed packaging, IO. Maybe start today! Could be on line campaign and have advertisement that raise awarenes of how better the world could be with no giant scan like Trilogy cover. Some body take up the cause. Rise up.
Awesome. I like how IO has carried on in Cosmo’s absence, but I’d been reading his writing on metal since IO was about one year old, and it’s so good to feel that familiar voice here. I don’t have a big need to download the mix as I’m familiar with pretty much everything on it, but I admire it for its eclecticism and find that it’s quite representative of this blog, both as it was then and as it is now. That’s some pretty impressive thematic consistency.
I’d never want Cosmo to return to this form of expression if he’s moved on, but it would be nice to know what he’s up to these days (maybe I missed it somewhere), though I don’t assume any “right to know” or any bullshit like that. I never met him or even directly interacted with him, but I do feel like he’s affected me in a substantial way, and I guess I feel a compulsion to keep up with people like that. Hope everything is well with him.
He likely means the arts would store on a site we would acess on the web. Then we could look at arts and chat online with our friends while we do so. Plus having art on line means no mess on fingers.
I hope to see Yngvie interview on IO.
You lived in Europe, in GERMANY, and found metal by messaging people on myspace? Did you wonder where the fucking Olive Garden was when you visited Italy, too?
Lot’s more of shitty techno and hip hop club music than anything. Rage and Manowar aint exactly blasting out of speakers across the whole fucking country.
The new guys are fighting hard… but Cosmo just had better quality control. I didn’t like everything he liked, but he did like some great shit, he didn’t waste a ton of time on streams and sweepstakes and tour sponsorships, and he was always good at saying what was what. Ah, fuck! Maybe that should be the bare minimum for a music writer, but even that is all too rare.
And if I can be totally blunt, I miss seeing actual metal on here. I feel like it’s all lame overdone “black” metal and frat-boy “hardcore” these days, and I hate that shit. I hate it. And these trolling comments… they depress me, and usually moreso because they’re right. Maybe I’m just drunk and tired and disgruntled. I can’t listen to anything but Sabbath or Priest these days without feeling down.
Booger: regarding your last sentence, somedays I know exactly how you feel
@kelly’s_a_girl’s_name Actually, there was an Yngwie interview on IO: http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/11/interview-yngwie-malmsteen/
I see it! now. Thank you for pointing way. I hope we have update soon from editor Kelly Kettering in regards to abolition of physical art for media release. Doomball you have link for this?
Yeah, post-Cosmo IO seems to lack direction. It just feels like a jumble of mostly opinion pieces and retrospectives. It’s not surprising that it should lose focus, though, passing from one man’s hands to many as it did.
I wonder if the current staff feel ashamed by their inferior work? Not saying I’d do any better, though.