Various Artists: Not Alone

Durtro Janana 2006.  Durtro Janana 1963

Discogs

I’ve been listening to compilations a bit lately, mainly because I usually neglect them and forget the hidden gems they contain.  This one is a bit of a beast; five full CDs and 75 artists, so it is a bit overwhelming but there’s so much interesting stuff it’s essential if you’re into the offbeat.

It was put together by David Tibet (of Current 93) who obviously has a hell of an address book as a benefit for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).  While it lacks the stylistic coherence of most of the compilations I’ve posted here in the past, the quality is mostly very high, and some effort has been made to make to album flow.  Realistically, you’ll never play the whole thing in one sitting, so the CDs are made to work pretty well as standalone albums.

It’s so vast and so varied I don’t really want to attempt a description – I’ll be typing all day.  I bought it for the Bonnie Prince Billy track, but soon realised it’s full of stuff I like, or at least stuff I would like if I’d heard it.  There are the avant garde names you’d expect, but also people representing his interest is the weirder end of folk, such as Bill Fay.

Really the best thing to do is look at the tracklisting below and to trust me that there’s very little filler.

Posting a charity album here might seem like a really bad idea, but it is sold out now.  If you enjoy it, you could assuage any guilty feelings you might have by donating to Medecins Sans Frontieres here.  They do really useful stuff providing medical help in places where it wouldn’t otherwise be available.