It can be frustrating trying to figure out what "tape music" is. All the people associated with this experimental-composition genre are so overeducated that they refuse to speak English anymore. But they're so excited about tape music, they'll write reams, or talk at you in their jibber-jabber for hours about a "fixed medium" and whether the "traditional avant-garde" is a legitimate category. Near as we can tell, the nuts and bolts of it are that synthetically generated tones serve as instruments, while the creativity is all in the playback, which depends entirely on where you are when you listen to it and how awesome your sound system is. (If we're wrong, tape-music-ers, send us lots of cryptic academic symbols, or bat clicks, or whatever! Love 'em!) To this end, the San Francisco Tape Music Festival sets up a massively fancy bank of speakers, and the performers (are they musicians? They say, "Sort of.") blow your mind through them. Superstars in this world include Pierre Schaeffer and György Ligeti (performing Friday), while a slew of locals, including Maggi Payne, Aaron Ximm, and Moe! Staiano, represents the Bay Area.
Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 8 p.m., 2009
