It is remarkable that I did not sprain my finger mashing the "order now" button when this vinyl boxed set was announced, as Folklore Tapes' elusive season-themed cassettes are among the label's most crucial releases. Being someone who has not always been particularly enthusiastic about cassette culture, I was slow to realize just how unique and special those limited releases were when the series first appeared. Consequently, this lavish boxed set is the first time that I heard many of these pieces, though the strange and eclectic stable of artists is certainly an endearingly familiar one for me at this point. Obviously, having extremely high expectations for something is usually a sure-fire way to end up disappointed, but Calendar Customs actually exceeded my hopes, opening up a deep rabbit hole into an idiosyncratic, phantasmagoric, and sublime alternate history.