October 05, 2003

Matching Labels

Bis Neun : Areal Records

This small german label mixed cd compilation, has been in the walkman for a while now, and came recommended from one of the blissblog related music blogs (who compared it to the Herbert mix cd on Tresor, which lit up my radar). Had a bit of trouble tracking it down, ended up ordering it from amazon germany, which was kinda fun. Kompakt have it too. Wonky up-tempo microhouse-ish wandering into funky clicky techno with fat bass, one excellent vocal track. (sneaky bonus track too, hiding after five mins of run out groove noise)

Quatermix : Quatermass

Another small label mixed comp disc, this time from Belgium. Bought on a whim from Warp, when I was pre-ordering the LFO album (which I'm still undecided about). Mellow electro breakbeat click, IDM without as much willfull perversity, heading into Chain Reaction / Force Tracks sound. A few bigish names; David Morley (blast from the past, think Apollo, R&S sub-label), To Roccoc Rot, Gez Varley, Andre Parker (whose hand I shook at Lost, while intensely under the influence, do get her DJ-Kicks cd, it's very good). Hangs together well, bears repeated listening.


I love small label comps, they're an excellent way of keeping in touch, especially for the vinylly challenged. Or in my case, the vinylly inconvenienced (2 decks, 8 cd players, do the maths). Small labels tend to be thematically driven, and organised by people who give a shit about the music. Their compilations generally distill the best of that.

Oh, and I understand that the LFO album is actually a collection of tracks recorded over the last five years. Which explains it's lack of coherence. Still, there are some great tracks in there...

Posted by inpHilltr8r at October 5, 2003 06:43 PM