Orthogonalbum

Orthogonalbum is a LOST MEDIA archive release from Tape Lab, pulling together some of the collective’s funkier, stranger, and less-polished material. This is not the clean showroom version. This is the side room. The recovered folder. The stuff with fingerprints still on it.

The album opens with “All Units Respond,” the lead single and first track, which has already made the rounds in social media videos from first responders. Accidentally useful music. Who knew.

From there, Orthogonalbum digs into a wide spread of Tape Lab oddities. “Hammer Headed” is a solid groover with Pokémon themes worked into the mix, because apparently that was necessary. “Data Crush” takes aim at the crushing role of big tech in modern life, putting some real-world paranoia underneath the rhythm. “No Fun Haus” features some of the most bizarre-sounding lyrics in the Tape Lab archive, which is saying something and probably not a compliment.

The record also reaches back into the Nephalem zone. “Nephalem Remastered Two” is built around a vintage Schuyer bass beat, while “Late Night Nephalem 4 Lyfe” was rediscovered and repaired years after it was first recorded — a proper lost-and-found cut dragged back into working order.

Orthogonalbum is Tape Lab in archive mode: funky, uneven, weirdly catchy, occasionally ridiculous, and better because nobody sanded all the edges off.

Featuring the single “All Units Respond.”