The American Suburbs. Home to the dream of a safe, comfortable middle-class life. But, is that all there is to these enclaves? What to make of suburban myths, rumors, and unexplainable occurrences that have long been a hallmark of these isolated neighborhoods: cavity fillings acting as malicious antennae, brainwashing disguised as home parties, experimental chemicals in the drinking water. The list goes on. However, none of these stories are more prevalent than those of a secretive governmental agency intercepting and manipulating communications and information in these communities.

Academic and conspiracy groups specializing in these stories believe that as early as the 1930’s, the US Postal Service has managed a secretive agency that has been surveilling and manipulating the populations of these communities. According to these sources, the “Postal Service Intelligence Agency” or “P.S.I.” has long taken advantage of the isolated nature of these communities, using their particularly unique position to monitor, manipulate and run experiments on these groups of citizens.

Until recently, there has never been any real evidence of the P.S.I.’s existence. However, in the summer of 2022, a member of a group known to scour thrift stores, estate sales and classifieds for home cassette recordings, suddenly and mysteriously came into possession of a large collection of documents alleged to be from the P.S.I. itself. Ranging from the late 1950’s to the mid 1990’s, the media in this collection documents not only the activities of the P.S.I. but also the effects upon the citizens they experimented with.

This collection of documents and the subjects of the experiments described within quickly became sacred to those who heard them. In an effort to share the stories without alerting the authorities, those possessing these documents formed the musical performance group “Cassette Prophet” in an effort to honor the people whose lives were forever changed by the P.S.I.

In “performances”, they share cassette recordings of actual P.S.I. agents and attempt to convey the experiences of the subjects through music and audience participation. Specially tuned portable radios are used by members of the audience to pick up pirate FM signals and share them. The entire audience is encouraged to sing specific frequencies to create a physiological resonance, mirroring the narrative, connecting all as one and thus transforming the room into a place of transcendence.