This is D.I.Y. at its most liberated.
The U.K.'s initial outburst of "cassette culture" produced sounds of incredible freshness, directness, and even occasional sophistication, which poured out of hundreds of bedrooms filled with found- and improvised percussion, Woolworths guitars, home-made electronics (and soldering fumes!) came at least a thousand tapes, mostly circulated through the mail for free or at cost (and usually in editions of 100 or fewer. The 'Greatest Hiss' series samples the cassette-scene's more, er, melodic material (sorry, there's no 'ambient' or 'industrial' - and everything's under 4 minutes!).

25 tracks on the CD plus five bonus MP3s: 86 minutes of music.
24-page booklet, crammed with histories, photos, artifacts and an essay from Mick Sinclair, who wrote the original 'Cassette Pets' column for Sounds.

Messthetics Greatest HISS features the superstars of cassette culture...and plenty of others: The Jelly Babies, Danny and the Dressmakers, Storm Bugs, Colin Potter, Event Group, The Get, Instant Automatons, Missing Persons, Gravity Craze, Farming Jim & his Hepcat Groovstas, 391, The Chromosomes, Mike Jones, The Living Dead no. 5, Digital Dinosaurs, The Twizlers, Aconite, Casual Labourers [Bendle and other DIY heavies], Midnight Circus, Milkshake Melon, Funhouse, Cultural Amnesia, Stripey Zebras, Chimp Eats Bananas [pre-Chumbawamba!] and Dean Johnson...

Listen:
Jelly Babies-'Soylent Green'
Missing Persons-'Sign of the Times'
Chromosomes-'Hi Fi Know How'
Storm Bugs-'Car Situation (nasal passage)'
Digital Dinosaurs-'Baby Snakes'
Midnight Circus-'Suburbia Nervosa'