REVIEWS

Everybody HurtsDescribing the sound of Rob Walmart is less explaining a genre than it is explaining a process. It might first help to understand that Rob Walmart is comprised of an ever-in-flux collective of artists that hail from Portland, Oregon and are known for their mobile trailer shows held out the back of moving delivery trucks. It's also worth a mention that Adam Forkner, the musician better known for his solo project White Rainbow, is one of the main collaborators of this group. Having released limited edition LPs and CDRs over the past four years, their album Everybody Hurts, recently released on Marriage records, is intended to be one of their more accessible releases. Covering 17 varied tracks, Everybody Hurts comes across as half-mixtape and half-improvisational jam session. The generally fuzzed and reverbed anarchy of the album is held together by means of looping electronic rhythms and a persistent vocal narrative. Everything from being introduced on the BBC, “The Queen's Pleasure,” to ditching friends' birthdays, “Escape from Mike's Birthday,” fill up the longer tracks on the album, quite a few of which pass the six minute mark.

While each of the tracks highlight eccentricity and improvisation, there is no attempt whatsoever to be serious. It is not difficult to realize that the entire album is pervaded with a witty and self-aware sense of humor. The track “New Song 4 Ya” builds into synthy pop and abruptly ends once the singer realizes that one of the fellow band members is not paying attention. Similarly, the song “Back to Reality” begins with a slow and screwed version of the late-80s dance hit only to be interrupted by a love ballad mixing in with rapid-paced MIDI dance music. Both of these songs last for no more than two minutes, but one could imagine these songs going on for much longer in a live performance (mind you out of the back of an ice-cream truck).

Despite the overt lightness of Everybody Hurts, it does contain some strikingly sentimental tracks such as the closing track “Lionel.” This ending track encompasses an odyssey of affection for Lionel Richie, explaining shared experiences driving powered wheelchairs in an insane asylum while eating chips. Given that this song is underlaid with a fuzzy, tranquil synth loop, it's possible to believe in these experiences (zooming around the wards of an insane asylum) despite their absurdity. Yet “Lionel” should not be taken as an exception to the album; throughout Everybody Hurts, Rob Walmart continuously experiment with the dualities between pop and experimental music, noise and rhythm, absurdity and sentimentality. It is quite refreshing to enjoy music made for its own sake that not only avoids the boundaries of genre, but openly plays with these boundaries itself. -- Darius Sabbaghzadeh

:: Rob Walmart/Everybody Hurts -- Marriage Records/A-Musik

no snareTender Forever is one of those singers and songwriters with a pure soul and honest lyrics, heartbreaking or heart-sticking melodies which tell the story of your life. And in this "open-book" -like way of singing and telling, I assume her albums reflect moments of her life. As a follower of her music, I've been always charmed by the sensitivity of her message and of her sound. Melanie Valera aka Tender Forever created her own specific sound mixing various genres of "pop music" and building her own, shiny folky electro pop, guided by her unique warm strong voice and touchy lyrics. This time, Tender Forever is broken hearted! It sounds probably like the main title of a cheap gossip magazine, but it's only the true feeling I got listening to her last album "No Snare". What was once shiny, positive and in-love is now heavy and mature. The same voice sounds different; the playful pop is still pop but there is a certain atmosphere which changes Tender Forever. "Got To Let Go", says it all: "I don't feel you anymore (got to let go, got to let go) what you did for me was something more, and I think its time you let it show, you dont love me anymore, (not gonna cry, not gonna cry,) what's left of your heart was dead before, and I think its time I let you die". Something has changed and the way she shows it is still tender, hopefully, forever.  All the tracks on the album are melancholic and sad, and have nothing more to do with the joyful funny-looking dance in "How Many" from her previous work. I stopped attentively at one track : "Nothing At All" ; there is something about the orchestration and R & B sounding refrain, that makes it deeply sad and charming. The voice is heart breaking but strong. She says it all in the face or in the ears of her lost lover and to all her listeners. It's soft and hardcore, the peak of melancholy is "Day Number". The lyrics describe a love relationship in eight easy steps. There is no exception from the rule. One minute and twenty-four seconds, and she said it all. I move on to the next songs on "No Snare", and I keep on wondering what happened to Melanie Valera aka Tender Forever - why so sad? "Nowhere Good Enough" is probably one of the most elaborated compositions in her whole work. It's anxious and dark, terms, I never thought I would use for Tender Forever. There is an oboe which introduces this "hopeless" story, like a dramatical scene in a classic ballet, and then she starts the lament: "There is nowhere good enough, nowhere I can build a house, and nowhere we could find, a place where we could die..."

I can't tell if this album is comforting or depressive but I guess it depends on each one's personal experience. What is sure, is that Tender Forever became a musical adult. Her compositions are complex and the variation of instruments got a lot larger than on the previous albums. She's no longer the cute boyish girl with her ukulele but a voice on powerful, (some ) almost symphonic constructions. The direction she chose didn't affect her style and she still kept her typical synthetic, cheesy beats and bells. You can still tell it's Tender Forever but it seems that life starts to unfold with good and bad, and in this album she brings out deep but wise sadness. "I've felt the universe, I felt the way my body could get hurt, I felt the love I could receive, and the love I couldn't give." Last song on the album "When I'm In The Dark And You Take Away The Dark" explains it all and my brief conclusion is: It's life! -- Miruna Boruzescu

:: TENDER FOREVER/NO SNARE - K Records /Cargo

nancy garcia"People are tired..." this is the start and maybe the Leitmotiv of an album that floats between rare but valuable moments of serenity and almost unstandable noise. Nancy Garcia welcomes the listener with bold but smart lyrics. The tension is growing progressively. The track "Be The Climb" has a strong vibe of the Riot Grrrl movement, a energetic and even more daring Bikini Kill revival, preparing the auditory for the next step because sound can push someone's limits really far. Noises can make one feel anxious, excited, dizzy or just nervous; the sounds in  "From The Kneeling" have the rare quality of being so well chosen (on purpose), that the track gets to be almost unbearable: you just find yourself listening to a 5 minutes and 37 seconds track build on repetitive edgy sounds, like a time-bomb ready to explode ANY  second. You want it so badly to end but in the same time you are paralized and unable to click the FFWD button on your player. And you better don't because you have to deserve the next song: In this sea of harsh, edgy sounds, Nancy Garcia gives the opportunity for a breath of fresh air in a grungy - alternative ballad, reminding slightly of The Vaselines or even some good old Smashing Pumpinks: "Perfectly Framed" heals because there is more and heavy to come. "Projections of real life, people are tired of working for anyone but themselves...", the main instrumental line of "Midweek Silence" could be a occupied phone call, a clever way to create a modern-times anxiety. Nancy's voice is a riot speech, bold and convincing, it makes the song explicit critique to the system. One of the best tracks of the album is "Overnight". Here Nancy uses strong sounds, full of flesh, noises that go directly through the ears to a listener's brain. The sounds are distorted but the rhythm and modulations are making this scratchy atmosphere somehow comfortable and they give a feeling of wanting-more. Even thou it seems chaotic, the structure of this track is perfectly balanced and the "rhythm" is just addictive. Go with your guitar distort as far as you can, explore all the possibilities, let yourself carried away by the sounds you create, bring your loop-machine, sequencer and audience to the peak of a nervous breakdown and you'll feel a "Healing Sensation"; this track could literally kill in a live performance! For some listeners, the album could end here but there's a last dizzy breath: "Bone", a lo-fi-out-of-tune but charming little sing-along ballad to let a bitter-sweet taste after listening this album which overall deserves some real attention! Even thou there is quite a big contrast between certain songs on this album, the general feeling is homogenous and well balanced. Extremes come together in a intellectual way and a listener can't really get tired or bored because there is always something unexpected coming up. Nancy Garcia is naturally a complete performer, using music and dance as artistic tools. This could cause a certain septicity in some listeners that believe these two elements can work only together and not apart. Anyhow, the album "Be The Climb" is perfectly able to stand on it's own as a positively intriguing musical journey, and a full-on album. -- Miruna Boruzescu

:: Nancy Garcia/Be The Climb - Ecstatic Peace/A-Musik

source of yellowIf you want to keep the exact geographical source but enjoy a musical journey in a more laid-back position, here's Source Of Yellow with their self-titled album-trip.
Overall the album is comparable to a session at your shrink. It depends of course of your symptoms. Source Of Yellow seems to come from very far away with a serene flute on a relaxed dub beat which introduces the listener in the upcoming atmosphere. It's a music of the senses with "poetical" moments. In "Public Digestive System", sounds built up sensations and describe feelings, as surreal and exaggerated that my sound, it's true. The atmosphere is loose and slightly anxious but still curious and exciting. A track which deserves some extra attention is definitely "Salt Mechanics": it's like the saxophone is brought to it's death trial and tries to escape the rest of the instruments which are slowly overtaking his freedom. And when you think the whole construction of the song looses control completely, it suddenly starts to crystalize in harmony, note by note into an organized chaos. "Inverted Pyramids" and "66%" are part of the same "family" of free-jazzy-kraut delight, where everything is possible, planets crash and drum sticks and guitar chords break but it doesn't matter. But suddenly out of the blue, the death-trialed sax comes out, and steals the show! I would consider Source Of Yellow as a piece in seven parts rather than an album with seven different tracks. The separate parts melt perfectly together and it's quite alike to find elements starting in a song and continuing in another. The finale of Source Of Yellow is a potential "hit", even if this term doesn't have anything to do with the music genres they are cultivating: "The Metronome Breaks The Hearts Of All Believers" is a intoxicating kraut rock piece with a crazy repetitive rhythm and  the potential to bring an audience on fire. It even sounds better than Lcd Soundystem! -- Miruna Boruzescu

:: Source Of Yellow /s.t. - Edition of 200 copies/Vinyl: http://sourceofyellow.com/

modulator ESPBart De Paepe a.k.a. Father Sloow a.k.a. Party Bart a.k.a. Sloow Bart a.k.a. The Father is a heavy thinker, a heavy drinker, a  broozer and a big city refuser, but that’s not what I want to write about here. Let’s talk about music: Bart is a member of Silvester Anfang and Sloowroad a.k.a. Father Sloow and Matt Valentine. But most importantly: Bart runs his own Sloow Tapes label for more than five years now. Sloow Tapes celebrates the taking-it-sloow-lifestyle and every Sloow Tape seems like part of the soundtrack for this kind of living. Here are reviews of three recent Sloow releases. Hiiragi Fukuda’s "My Turntable Is Slow" is very close to kitsch. This would not be a problem if the songs were well structured, but they’re not. They’re just too thin. More like half worked out ideas than real songs: the vocals sound the same on every track -spoken word with a lot of echo- and the guitar parts are an endless repeat of simple guitar melodies, with some extra arrangements added here and there. Am I too hard here? Maybe. "My Turntable Is Slow" is probability not bad, but than again: not bad is not good enough.
Sir Plastic Crimewave’s "Into The Depths" is more my cup of tea: heavy psyched guitar loops in a bath of feedback and delay on the A side. Blues guitar played with a hard rock attitude. Tetuzi Akiyama style. Now we’re talking again! The B-side is more drone based with kraut and even American folk elements. John Fahey, obviously. But also Roky Erickson or The Grateful Death. And oh yeah: the tape is pink. Pink. Nice. Operator, please, come over. Green bubbles and blue smoke are coming out of my synthesiser. What? Have I tried to put the damn machine on off? No, of course not, I’m recording! Modulator ESP. "New Horizons". Really great stuff.  -- Joeri Bruyninckx

:: Hiiragi Fukuda - My Turntable Is Slow /Sir Plastic Crimewave - Into The Depths /Modulator ESP - New Horizons  - 3 Cassettes released on Sloow Tapes  - http://sloowtapes.blogspot.com/

oval-ODer Berliner Markus Popp, der seit 1996 unter dem Namen Oval ein multimedialen Projekt verfolgt, wurde oft unzulänglich als Musiker bezeichnet. Die eigentliche Musik machte aber nur einen kleinen Teil des Ovalspektrums aus, ist gewissermaßen das hörbare Segment darin. Popp war zuvorderst immer Klangforscher, der sich den Ableitungen, Manipulationen, Dekonstruktionen und Prozessen im Referenzsystems Musik widmete. Dabei machte er Herstellungsbedingungen (verwendete Software als Open-Source) transparent oder schaffte in interaktiven Klanginstallationen Dialoge zwischen Raum, Ton und Mensch. Klänge zu erkunden, zu stören und (physisch) erlebbar zu machen, war ein wichtiges Moment bei Oval. Nach nunmehr fast einem Jahrzehnt ist ein neues Album entstanden, das – laut Pressetext bei Thrill Jockey – ganz anders als alles vorhergehende und deshalb quasi ein zweites Debütalbum sei. Mit „O“ - dem Doppelalbum, das der EP „Oh“ folgt - wendet sich Popp von gängigen, früheren Produktionsprinzipien elektronischer Musik ab und betreibt Harmonielehre statt Theorie und Meta-Diskurs. Mit dieser Herangehensweise ist er also vielleicht zum ersten Mal vor allem eines: Musiker. Hatte Popp sich sonst als der Technik untergeordnet betrachtet, ist er jetzt zum vorderen kreativen Element geworden. Das akustische Resultat dieser Mensch-Maschine-Umkehrung wird getragen von Rhythmen und Harmonien, elektroakustischen Riffs und kantig kollidierenden Gitarren-Sounds. Der Fokus ist dabei auf klare, melodische Strukturen und einen kleinen Pool von Sounds gelenkt, die oft zu Fragmenten werden und nur wenige Minuten dauern. So erscheinen die Songs wie zufällige Entwürfe, die dem Album keinen Abbruch tun, sondern im Gegenteil, ihm seine charmante, kopflose Rohheit verleihen. -- Eileen Seifert

:: Oval / O - Thrill Jockey/Rough Trade. 

anthology vol.6In gewisser Weise eröffnete damals, im November 2001, An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music – Volume 1, mit der vorrangigen Betrachtung „verschollener, klassischer, experimenteller“ Komponisten aus dem vergangenen Jahrhundert die Dekade des Noise, die Renaissance des Drone und der elektroakustischen Musik. Jene  dadaistisch anmutende Tonschschleife „Corale“ von Luigi & Antonio Russolo von 1921 stand neben Walter Ruttmans musique-concretem Kammerspiel „Wochenende“ (1930), stand neben den hochfrequenten Micro-Sounds von Ryoji Ikeda in „One Minute“ sowie neben Sonic Youth „Audience“, welches Publikumsgeschnatter nach einem Konzert im Berliner Loft von 1983 verfremdet aufzeichnet. Heute nun sind wir bei Volume 6 des belgischen Labelbetreibers & Kurators Marc Hinant angelangt, auch hier ließe sich die Ausbeute an „gefundenen“ raren sowie unveröffentlichtem Material an nach innen wie nach außen geschichteter Divergenz als fulminant betiteln, obwohl sich erstmals der Großteil des Materials auf den Zeitraum der 2000er Jahre datiert/konzentriert. Was zum Einen den Vorteil stellt, dass die Sammlung zumeist zeitgemäßes, also kontemporäres Material führt, zum Anderen aber den Nachteil bringt, dass sehr viel, vielleicht zu viel Material, ob nun mit oder ohne aufwändiger Live-Software eingespielt, aus dem Computer mit dem Computer stammt. Julie Rousse, Pablo Palacio oder John Wiese seien hierfür genannt, die stellvertretend für ein ganzes Heer die digitale Entwicklung und somit Verbreitung „fremdartiger“ Sounds aus dem Laptop-Labor vorantreiben. Dagegen oder daneben stehen Studio Outtakes von Hijokaidan mit einer wüsten Soundcollage „Untitled“ (1994), oder Tzvi Avnis Stimmen- und Feldaufnahmen von 1964, die Karl-Heinz Stockhausen bei seinen frühen Lectures angewendet haben soll. Stefan Joel Weisser aka Z`EVs siebenminütiges Stück stammt von einem Live-Mitschnitt aus dem Melkweg, Amsterdam von 1980. Z`EV erarbeitet seine Tracks zumeist mittels Metall, Holz, Gong und Drums, benannt als "eine Form der Dekonstruktion des Drone", so auch hier. Naturgemäß steht auch mit Volume 6 das dokumentarisch-historische Moment im Vordergrund, was eine „Seriosität“ erzeugt, die selbst den wohlmeinendsten Hörer und trotz des gutausgebauten as/if - Z`EVSpannungsbogen in der Reihenfolge beider CDs nach einigen Stücken ermüden mag. Komplette und vollständig dokumentierte Live-Mitschnitte der frühen Z`EV Performances veröffentlicht Sub-Rosa separat und zeitgleich mit dem Album „as/if“. Mit „as“ ist ein Live-Mitschnitt aus dem Jahre 1978 in Los Angeles betitelt, die „if“-Seite stammt aus einer Show in San Francisco von 1982. Hier rattert und rumpelt es wie auf der Schrottverwertungsanlage Montag morgens um sieben, kaum zu glauben dass ein einzelner Mann alleine und intensiv aus diversen Materialien Klang-Kluster durcheinander würfeln kann so wie ein Jongleur barfuß auf dem Ameisenhaufen, aber scheinbar geht’s. Sicherlich enthalten diese beiden Alben zeitgeschichtlich relevantes Material, jedoch bleibt die Ahnung, dass eben jene Historie eine verblichene Epoche reflektiert, die im Anbetracht der beschleunigten Zeitereignisse im Makrokosmos der Gegenwart mehr und mehr als Marginale gewertet werden muss.  

:: An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music / Vol 6 - Sub Rosa SR290/A-Musik

:: Z`EV /as/if - Sub Rosa SRV229 (Vinyl only)/A-Musik     

Oneohtrix Point NeverThe opening track of Returnal sounds something like an extended cartoon explosion. Percussion rattles off like out-of-control machine guns, a whole range of 'special effect' type sounds are deployed from machine noises to self-consciously-electronic beeps blasts and whistles. A vaguely muezzin-like voice calls out over the buzzing, crackling chaos, is engulfed by the barrage of sound and then re-emerges towards the end. Although impressive in it's own right, this track is at odds with the music on the rest of this collection. Opening the disc this way seems deliberately confrontational. Maybe not always a bad strategy, but I can imagine may listeners skipping straight to the warm, enveloping organ drones of 'Describing Bodies'.

Like a lot of drone-based music, most of the tracks here work best played loud enough to be experienced as bodily vibration rather than just through the ears. This is music to be enveloped by, surrounded and surrendered to. As such, most of the pieces here feel a little short at between four and six minutes long. The gentle washes of 'Stress Waves' could be expanded to an entire CD's duration without complaint from this listener. The longest track 'Pelham Island Road' is in this respect the most satisfying, but also the track that is most redolent of another artist. The fuzzy harpsochord-like sounds and slow distorted drift are strongly reminiscent of Fennesz, but manage to also carry the distinctive sonic thumbprint of their creator. The title track 'Returnal' features heavily-processed vocals which smear themselves across the speakers appealingly, reminding the listener of pop music, but without pop music's essential immediacy.

 Moments of Returnal skirt close to being so gentle and reassuring they could be mistaken for an extract from somebody's New Age meditation compilation. Perhaps the abrasive opening track is an attempt to head off such criticism before the listener is allowed access to the main body of the album. If that is the case, then I would argue that such a strategy is misguided. The most successful parts of this recording embrace the potentially cheesy nature of analogue synthesisers and present the listener with a wash of sound that is both somehow comforting and melancholy. The sweetness of this music is its strength and there is enough depth and grain here to satisfy anyone who cares to listen a little deeper. -- Nick Ilott

:: Oneohtrix Point Never/Returnal - Editions Mego/A-Musik.

at dawnEs ist wenig zu lesen über den gebürtigen Schweden Dan Fröberg. Wenn aber doch fallen sichtlich oft die Worte Freiheit, Kreativität und Genialität. - Ein begrifflich starkes Dreiergespann, das sich zu bedingen scheint und dabei immense Erwartungen an den sogenannten „Wild Man Of The Arts“ (sic! Label iDEAL) stellt. Das zwei Kompositionen umfassende Album „At Dawn We Fall Down The Stairs“, das zeitgleich mit „The Existence Of Do-Ti-La-So-Fa-Mi-Re-Do is Everything!“ (iDEAL 096) erschien, ist formal zuerst aber etwas auf keinen Fall: wild. Der Sound, der zumeist aus der Tonschichtungen von Glasinstrumenten und Field-Recordings besteht, repräsentiert das komplette Gegenteil zu einer solchen Assoziation. Sphärisch, filigran und unendlich gestreckt, füllen Klänge den Raum bis in den letzten Winkel. Aufgenommen wurden die Stücke in Mexiko, wovon kunstvoll eingebundene Passagen in Form von Stimmengewirr auf spanisch oder Monologe von akzenthaftem Englisch zeugen. So mutet der zweite Teil des Albums „Hat Down Wee Owl Oul Drown Death Stares“ wie eine vertonte poetische Satz-Collage an, die besonders spirituelle Themen anspricht; Von den Indios, der Natur, der Existenz oder Übernatürlichkeit ist dort die Rede. Im Kern geht es hier kaum um eine bloße experimentelle Verknüpfung von Musik und Text als vielmehr um eine tiefgehende, akustische Auseinandersetzung mit einem Phänomen: Fröbergs Tape-Recorder als Speicher von Feldaufnahmen ist so gleichermaßen In- und Output-Medium einer kulturellen Feldforschung. -- Eileen Seifert.

:: Dan Fröberg/At Dawn We All Fall Down The Stairs - iDEAL Recordings/A-Musik

staubgold 100These two releases featuring Staubgold label head Markus Detmer mark the label's 99th and 100th releases. As such they can be seen as both a backward glance towards ground that the label has already covered and also perhaps a map to the regions that will be explored in the future.

As Klangwart, Detmer is joined in his sonic explorations by Timo Reuber. The pair craft slowly evolving electronic surfaces of sound with at least as much attention paid to sonic grain and texture as to more traditional ideas about rhythm and pitch. Although the high frequencies employed can occasionally verge on abrasive, perhaps a deliberate toying with the listener's comfort zones, the overall impression is very much of sonic lushness. Even on tracks such as 'Schnappschuss', where a great deal of sonic detail is presented simultaneously, each part has a carefully assigned space within the sound spectrum and the warmth of the bass and carefully controlled echo effects envelop the listeners ears. There isn't a great deal of conventional drum sounds here, with minimal synths often acting as a kind of tuned bass drum. Much of the rhythm is created by looped synthesisers and where there are explicit 'drum' sounds they tend to mimic hand percussion rather than a full traditional kit.

The mood shifts, often almost imperceptibly slowly, between a sort of blissed out bucolic electronia that brings to mind 70s classics by Cluster and Brian Eno while subtly updating and complicating the sound for the new century, and a crawling sense of foreboding that nods at Dubstep with its deep cavernous bass and music concrete and film soundtrack music with its employment of many disparate, often clashing textures and elements. 'Moloch' is the darkest track here, with an obsessive beat that evokes the ideas of fire sacrifice suggested by the title. The upper register synth hooks, bending up like some sort of slowed down and sonically degraded riffs from an old hardcore techno record, place the listener on the dancefloor, albeit a paranoid and strung out dark reflection of how the dancefloor is commonly imagined. 'Frühtau' in contrast, washes over the ears in warm and blissful waves; an organ delineates a slow moving series of chord changes; high harmonics shimmer out hints of ice-cream-van-melody while slow filter sweeps create an expansive mood as the music gently builds and builds.

These contrasts are the heart of this music. There is a clear thread of romanticism and nostalgia for bygone days, of which the nods towards psychedelic music's appropriation of non-Western musics in 'Wellenbad' is only the most obvious example. However underneath the bucolic idyll of tracks such as 'Schnappschuss'  lurks the machine, drilling and grinding away with slow but inevitable progress towards the listeners consciousness. 'Schnappschuss' begins with a beeps and blips of electronic noises that simultaniously evoke birdsong and a malfunctioning computer as imagined by the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop before the grinding, mechanical bass begins to emerge, chewing away underneath the synthesised forest. This is electronic music that problematises and questions the ideas of technology. In contrast to the way groups like Kraftwerk once presented a vision of utopia, Klangwart's response to our increasingly digitally-dependant daily lives is far more ambivalent and no less interesting.

100 Jahre Einsamkeit is a mix album with selections chosen by Markus Detmer from across Staubgold's discography. Including 21 tracks and over 70 minutes in length it has the potential to cover a great deal of musical ground. For the first half of the disc the tracks move quickly with few sticking around for more than two or three minutes. 'I begin to Know the Map' by Mapstation begins things with birdsong, subtle beats and a distorted voice, setting up an atmosphere that is somehow eerie but also laid back. This mood is continued by the tracks that follow, with the rhythms getting increasingly funky until Alejandro Franov's 'Sudan', which flirts with a 'middle eastern' vibe that sounds somewhat kitschy in this context, although not in a bad way. 'Oudische' continues the theme, but the impassioned vocals lend it both greater emotional punch and seriousness. Styles and genres then begin change with increasing frequency and the beats become more bombastic. Curse ov Dialect and Dälek add rapping to the mix, while The Flying Lizard and Zulu bring dancehall flavours. The most unexpected transition is to Ekkehard Ehers 'Ain't no Grave', where his cut ups of acoustic blues singing and guitar stand in stark sonic contrast to much of the material around them.

Towards the end of the mix, tracks begin to stretch out more and singing begins to take a more prominent role. Tracks by Leafcutter John, Sun, Kammerflimmer Kollektief and Jasmina Maschina appropriate ideas from vintage pop, rock and folk music, but these ideas are filtered through technology until blurred and smudged like a 10th generation photocopy or audio cassette. Individual words are often indistinct and the singers seem somehow numbed. The many moments of beauty here are suffused with yearning, but also dreamlike, separated from worldly concerns. By the time Ekkehard Ehlers takes things out with the slow repetitive organ phrases and spoken word of 'Woolf Phrase' any urge to tap ones' feet has been replaced by an urge to lie back and let the waves of sound wash over.

As a showcase for Staubgold's breadth and vision as a record label 100 Jahre Einsamkeit is certainly impressive. More importantly it stands on its own as a collection of music. Making a body of music this disparate work together is a considerable achievement. The sequencing of the tracks and mixing is impeccable, as might be expected. There are sufficient shifts in mood and texture to keep things interesting, but also enough common ground between artists to lend a musical logic to the shifts between individual tracks. The focus on the texture of sound apparent in Sommer is continued throughout every track in this collection. This is music made by people who care deeply about the intricacies of each high hat hit or reverb bloom and each track presents the ear with rich and interesting new juxtapositions of elements.  Like the very best multi-genre mix albums, such as David Holmes' fantastic Essential Mix, 100 Jahre Einsamkeit has a very personal feel, a little like something one might receive in the post from a particularly tasteful and talented friend. Together with Sommer it serves as a refreshing reminder of the endless fields of sonic possibility still to be discovered. -- Nick Ilott

:: Klangwart/Sommer - Various/100 Jahre Einsamkeit - Staubgold/Indigo.