Compilation – Page 4

by Vinyl301 - March 19, 2013

Various Artists: Home

Sheer Joy 1990. Sheer CD001

An interesting Manchester compilation this with some exclusive tracks from bands worth hearing.

The most interesting is The Fall’s Theme From Error-Orrori. I have no idea what Error-Orrori actually is, but it’s a Fall track unavailable elsewhere which is all you need to know. Weirdly it’s credited not to The Fall, but to the individual band members. Mark E Smith said in an interview recently that “if it’s me and your Granny on bongos it’s The Fall”, so I make no apology for changing the tagging accordingly.

For me the other essential track is the New Fast Automatic Daffodils’ Jaggerbog, again, unavailable elsewhere. It’s not as polished as their usual output but well worth the price of admission.

The Paris Angels were another Manchester band full of promise who were soon swallowed up by major label crapness – another one worth a listen.

If you’re into New Order, Revenge are half of them (but I forget which half) and you may know World Of Twist and What? Noise.

by Vinyl301 - March 16, 2013July 14, 2013

Various Artists: Jazz Satellites Vol 1 – Electrification

Virgin Ambient 1996. AMBT12

Discogs

I’ve loved compilations since the dim and distant days when I would spend hours making compilation cassettes for friends, probably aimed more at showing them how great my taste in music was than anything else – maybe that’s also why I do this blog. Anyway, it was never enough to put great music on a compilation. You had to think about a theme and how each track related to the next one so that it hung together as a coherent whole. This album is part of a short but truly excellent series put out by Virgin in the 1990s, some of which are the best compilations I’ve ever heard, and of that series, this is one of the best.

To me the album explores what electric era Miles Davies led to, both in terms of what most jazz fans would recognise as jazz, but also from other genres which show an obvious debt to Miles, and music which predated his electrification. You don’t need to look at the tracklisting to guess that there are people like Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock and Alice Coltrane featured, but less obviously, and perhaps more interesting to folk likely to stumble on this blog are bands like Ui (quite like Tortoise) and post-punk/industrial artists like 23 Skidoo, Slab and The Pop Group. Finally, there are cutting edge (in 1996) artists like Bedouin Ascent and Divine Styler. As you’d expect there’s less familar material too – best of them for me the Tony Williams Lifetime and Roland Kirk – both jumping off points for more musical explorations.

All of this means that this is one of the best structured compilations I’ve ever heard, and probably my most played too. It’s not always an easy listen, but it rewards the effort. It’s a double, but as usual I’ve ripped it as one very long disc because it’s a better listen without the break in the middle. I’ll post more of the Virgin Ambient albums in the future.

by Vinyl301 - March 7, 2013March 7, 2013

Various Artists: Sonic Boom, The Art Of Sound

Discogs

I spend a lot of time in art galleries, and of course am a bit obsessed by experimental music, so the Hayward Gallery’s 2000 “sound art” exhibition, curated by the always interesting David Toop was a must for me. This post is the double CD compilation which came with the exhibition catalogue, and while it suffers a bit from the lack of accompanying visuals (and for you the lack of the catalogues extensive notes on all the artists), there’s enough here to maintain interest.

I’ll talk a bit about some of my favourites.

Firstly, Philip Jeck whose work revolves around having loads of old Dansette record players playing “distressed” records. For Sonic Boom, the record players were all stuck on a single groove, and were switched on and off with timers, which produced a suprisingly effective audio collage.

Christian Marclay’s piece, Guitar Drag, needs a bit of explanation. What he did was fix a guitar amp to the back of a flatbed truck, plug a guitar in and drag it behind the truck until the guitar was destroyed. At Sonic Boom, this was a film, but here it’s only an except of the film’s soundtrack. It’s surprisingly listenable, that is if you’re into experimental guitar music, and taps into the destruction of guitars by endless rock gods, but also the popular pastime of murdering black men in the American south (where this was filmed) by dragging them behind trucks not too many decades ago.

I’d like to post some Ryoji Ikeda here – I’ve been fond of his minimalist electronice for a long time, but everything I have is still available, so the extract here from his zero degrees album will have to do.

Lee Renaldo and Brian Eno need no introduction, I’ve talked about John Oswald before, and will post some Thomas Köner stuff at some point in the future.

This compilation is of course flawed, as was the exhibition it documents. It’s incomplete because it’s audio only, and some of the tracks weren’t at the exhibition at all because what was wouldn’t have worked here. Nevertheless there’s lots here which is worth a listen if you have a liking for the experimental, and a few rare gems from better known artists.

Here’s a tracklisting, lifted as usual from Discogs:

CD1.1 Scanner – The Collector
Composed By – Robin Rimbaud 4:00
CD1.2 Ken Ikeda & Mariko Mori – Miko No Inori
Composed By – Ken Ikeda 4:00
CD1.3 Pan Sonic – Alku 2:27
CD1.4 Project Dark – Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 2:40
CD1.5 Max Eastley & Thomas Köner – In Concert 6:14
CD1.6 Christina Kubisch – Oase 2000 7:36
CD1.7 Bow Gamelan* & Paul Burwell – Never Mind The Rowlocks
Composed By – P.D. Burwell* 4:00
CD1.8 Christian Marclay – Guitar Drag 4:00
CD1.09 Stephan Von Huene – Extended Schwitters 6:57
CD1.10 Angela Bulloch – Theremin 7:17
CD1.11 Chico Macmurtrie – Yoyo Berimbau 1:11
CD1.12 Greyworld – Studio 5 2:30
CD2.1 Ian Walton & Russell Mills – Mantle 7:01
CD2.2 Lee Ranaldo – El Oido (The Ear) 6:07
CD2.3 Philip Jeck – Off The Record 5:22
CD2.4 Brian Eno – Kites III (Extract) 7:19
CD2.5 Ryoji Ikeda – 0* :: Zero Degrees (1) 3:31
CD2.6 John Oswald – Mad Mod 2:12
CD2.7 Paul Schütze – The Head, The Soles Of The Feet, An Arm (Extract) 6:33
CD2.8 João Paulo Feliciano & Rafael Toral – Rlo I 6:58
CD2.9 Disinformation – National Grid 6:43
CD2.10 Max Eastley – Domain Of Presences
Mastered By – Peter Cusack 7:21
CD2.11 Heri Dono – Watching The Marginal People 2:00

by Vinyl301 - March 6, 2013March 19, 2013

Various Artists: Ruby Trax

New Musical Express 1992. NME40CD

Discogs

A move into rather more mainstream territory than usual for this post. Ruby Trax was put together in 1992 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the NME by getting 40 (mostly) indie luminaries of the day to cover No 1 singles. It’s undoubtedly ambitious, but the overwhelming impression is of artists who really couldn’t be bothered but felt obliged to contribute to keep the music journos happy. I’ve posted it not because of it’s artistic merit – there’s not much of that on display, but because of it’s long drawn out bizarreness. Bizarreness is good.

In musical terms it’s worth it for the poignant cover of Suicide Is Painless by the Manics, three years before the disappearance of Richie Edwards, but other than that it’s mostly of interest to music geeks with completeist tendencies like me. There are simply too many great bands here not to own it, regardless of how good (or not) it is.

If it has any appeal, maybe it’s the prospect of hearing bands you love making colossal errors of judgment (Billy Bragg doing disco anyone?), or just dashing something off without any real thought at all. The Fall’s cover of Legends Of Xanadu ranks, I think as one of their worst efforts, but it was voted no. 5 in Peels’ festive fifty that year. Is there something in it that I’ve missed? Or maybe the bizarreness of it appealed. The usually reliable Fatima Mansions cover the excerable Everything I Do I Do It For You. At the time of course I was so heartily sick of the song that even the thought of it induced waves of nausea which maybe is why they chose to do it. It’s hard to figure out why they slowed it down so much though, but I guess that’s the problem with the whole album, no-one thought much about anything at all.

Some of it is decent enough. Suede were wonderful in 1992, and their version of Brass In Pocket while lazy works pretty well. St Etienne’s Stranger In Paradise is hardly world shattering, but is a solid effort.

I think I should single out Ride for particular criticism. All they manage to show by covering Kraftwerk’s The Model is a startling lack of musical knowledge. There are certain artists you don’t cover (Al Green and Jeff Buckey for example) because their recordings are so definitive, any attempt to follow them leaves you with a lot of egg on your face. Kraftwerk fit that category – only the fictional Señor Coconut’s bizarre/hilarious calypso versions really pass muster. An exception is Big Black’s wonderful cover of The Model on their Songs About Fucking LP, and it’s that track which made Ride’s task impossible. Ride were a good, maybe even great guitar band, but the song had already been put on the shelf for guitar bands by Steve Albini. And of course no-one, especially not a guitar band, would try to sound like Kraftwerk…. surely no-one’s that daft…. Well it turns out, Ride were that daft.

As usual I’ve ignored the triple disc format of this and ripped it as one big lump of 40 tracks. Here’s a tracklisting:

Wonder Stuff, The – Coz I Luv You
Billy Bragg – When Will I See You Again?
Jesus And Mary Chain, The – Little Red Rooster
Mission, The – Atomic
Fatima Mansions, The – (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
St Etienne* – Stranger In Paradise
Wedding Present, The – Cumberland Gap
Aztec Camera / Andy Fairweather-Low – (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice
Dannii Minogue – Show You The Way To Go
Welfare Heroine – Where Do You Go To My Lovely?
Blue Aeroplanes, The – Bad Moon Rising
Senseless Things – Apache
Teenage Fanclub – Mr Tambourine Man
Ruby Trax Part 2
Carter USM* – Another Brick In The Wall
Blur – Maggie May
Tears For Fears – Ashes To Ashes
House Of Love, The – Rock Your Baby
Frank And Walters, The – I’m A Believer
EMF – Shaddap You Face
Suede – Brass In Pocket
Tori Amos – Ring My Bell
Kingmaker – Lady Madonna
Marc Almond – Like A Prayer
Farm, The – Don’t You Want Me?
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – I’ve Never Been To Me
Boy George – My Sweet Lord
Ruby Trax Part 3
Jesus Jones – Voodoo Chile
Bob Geldof – Sunny Afternoon
Johnny Marr & Billy Duffy – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Cud – Down Down
Fall, The – Legend Of Xanadu
Sinead O’Connor* – Secret Love
World Party – World Without Love
Inspiral Carpets – Tainted Love
Elektric Music – Baby Come Back
Ride – The Model
Vic Reeves – Vienna
Tin Machine – Go Now
Curve – I Feel Love
Manic Street Preachers – Suicide Is Painless

by Vinyl301 - March 5, 2013April 17, 2013

Various Artists: If You Can’t Please Yourself, You Can’t Please Your Soul

Some Bizzare 1985. SBZCD1

Discogs

Some Bizarre’s second compilation from 1985 is an important musical document, containing as it does seminal tracks from a number of bands, most of which I guess you’d call industrial, who went on to have significant careers. It’s also really strong musically; there really isn’t a duff track here, and it’s quite a CV for whoever their A&R guy was.

The cover is suitably disturbing, although the vinyl issue, which I also have but can’t be bothered to rip is much more interesting:

It includes a number of weird inserts, including a folder printed with “Today’s Government’s Plans Towards Utopia” which contains a blank piece of paper and another sheet which is probably an early attempt at cover art because it includes the album’s original title.

Most of the tracks here are exclusives (Coil for example) , others impossibly rare (The The), so it’s worth having even if you’re only interested in one or two bands.

Here’s a tracklisting (with thanks to Discogs)

Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel – The Only Good Christian Is A Dead Christian 3:27
Cabaret Voltaire – Product Patrol 4:19
Test Dept. – Total Nervous Phenomonom 3:41
Marc Almond – Love Amongst The Ruined 6:36
Psychic T.V. – Twisted 7:57
The The – Flesh And Bones 4:00
Coil – The Wheel 2:42
Yello – The Roxy Cut 4:30
Virginia Astley – Waiting To Fall 3:27
Einstürzende Neubauten – Wardrobe 2:40

by Vinyl301 - February 27, 2013June 7, 2013

Mille Plateaux: In Memorium Gilles Deleuze

Mille Plateaux 1996. MP CD 22

Discogs

This is the best of three of compilation albums I have which were issued in tribute to the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze after his suicide in 1995. All of them are dark electronica, this one being issued by the Mille Plateaux label. I’m not entirely convinced that the link between Deleuze’s work and the music here really works for the listener, but since the label was named after one of Deleuze’s books, whether I can see the connection or not, it’s certainly there. The artists represented are very much from the intellectual end of electronica (and elsewhere). Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud for example writes regularly for The Wire in which most of the artists figured prominently throughout the 1990s. To what extent they’re directly influenced by Deleuze isn’t clear,

That this was an important project for Mille Plateux is obvious. There are no out-takes, poor quality remixes or tracks lifted out of context from albums. Everything here is exclusive and hangs together remarkably well, despite the contrast between the full on aural assault of, say, Steel and the more ambient character of much of the rest. Looking down the tracklist it’s a veritable who’s who of everyone who was worth listening to in the world of electronica in the 1990s. If you’re into this kind of stuff, it’s essential listening.

This is a double CD, but the break between the discs is of no significance, so I’ve ripped it as though it was a single, very long disc.

1. Gilles Deleuze – Gilles Deleuze
2. Happy Deterritorializations – Wehowsky/Wollscheid
3. On the Edge of a Grain of Sand- :Zoviet*France:
4. Bon Voyage – Alec Empire
5. Gigantic Tautological Machinery – Cristian Vogel
6. Indirection/Comtinuum – Christophe Charles
7. Abstract Miniatures in Memoriam Gilles Deleuze – Atom Heart
8. Heller – Gas
9. Intro-Spektiv – Chris & Cosey
10. Wunschmaschinenpark- J.Burger
11. Death Is the Begining – Steel
12. Can’t Be Still- Blue Byte
13. Starjammer – Trans Am
14. Intermodal – Rome
15. As In – Jim O’Rourke
16. You Are Here 0.9 B – Oval
17. 1001 – Mouse on Mars
18. Vital One – Ian Pooley
19 Patent – Bleed
20. Qeria for Gilles Deleuze – Tobias Hazan
21. Without End – Scanner
22. Invisual Ocean – DJ Spooky
23. Gradation d’Humor-Fetisch Park
24. Traobeik – Gilles Deleuze
25. And Line – Kerosene
26. Garator – El Turco Loco
27. Layered Layers- Beequeen