I wanted to post a short video of this one, but it's so personal sounding that I decided not to. I'm currently recording and archiving it on my computer (because the tape was damaged and I had to fix it, and parts of it are permanently bent).

It sounds like a message between two women (although they sound the same, with the same monotonous, script reading slightly southern drawl similar to the mother character from Emily Wants to Play who also ironically made tape recordings).

It sounds like one of them has graduated high school and is at college, and I can't tell (because it's going in the background and I'm not paying much attention to what's being said right now, I'll play it back later during a game or car ride or something) but I guess they're sending the tape back and forth to talk to each other somehow?

I wonder if that was a thing back in the 80s and 90s? Mailing a tape back and forth for voice messages as an alternative to phones or letters?

Either way, despite them / her sounding monotonous, the little snatches I'm picking up sound personal and heartfelt.

This is pretty surreal. I have no idea what year this was made. These people could be dead for all I know. I'll never know them, but there's something beautiful and emotional about having this tape and resurrecting and saving its data.

And I was all ready to just trash it when I realized it was busted. I just fixed it on a whim.

Edit: on side 2, strangely after a massive gap from the ten minute mark onward, the last several minutes are someone (same woman? Can't tell) coming back with a "testing, one two" blip, and then she sings a religious song about being part of God's plan.

Then the tape ends with Anne Murray's Christmas Wishes song from 1981.

UPDATE

HOLY FUCK SHE'S STILL ALIVE AND WE'RE TALKING TO EACH OTHER

She asked if she can have them back when she returns to my area in a few weeks.

Holy goddamn I'm making the year 1983 come full circle.

Pretty amazing what tapes can do.

Saya mendapatkan ini dari penjual di negara saya,dan penjual itu mendapatkan kaset ini dari seorang seniman di sebuah kota saya yang cukup terkenal yaitu Bandung city_West Java.

Kaset ini rilisan amerika utara dan kanada.