VARIOUS ARTISTS
Bip-Hop Generation Vol. 7
BLEEP24
Bip-Hop 2004
14 Tracks. 79mins50secs

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In just three years, Marseille-based Bip-Hop has established itself as a visionary label, with consistently high quality releases from the likes of Bovine Life, Si-Cut.db, Cray, Twine, Scanner, or more recently Max Eastley & David Toop. Equally consistent has been the label’s Bip-Hop Generation series, which, more than a simple series of compilations, provides an interesting insight into contemporary experimental music. Each volume is focused around six different artists from around the world, each providing between one and four exclusive pieces. The majority of the artists who have had full-length albums released on Bip-Hop have also contributed to the series, with additional contributions from the like of Schneider TM, Phonem, Arovane, Neotropic or Mira Calix, to name but a few. The last volume, released in December 2002, concluded the original six-part series. Volume seven therefore opens a new area for the label. Although following the exact same principle, Bip-Hop Generation Vol. 7 comes complete with a new design. Featuring contributions from the Brooklyn-based 12K label founder Taylor Deupree, Emisor’s Leonardo Ramella, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Japanese duo Fonica, Chinese collective Fm3, Canada’s Ghislain Poirier and British sound artist Janek Schaefer, Bip-Hop Generation Vol. 7 continues to dig deep into the world of experimental music, bringing together an interesting range of artists and ambiences. The general mood of this album is downbeat, with textural structures as the common denominator. From the beatless constructions of Deupree’s three tracks or the lush minimalism of Fonica’s Scoot to the dark and oppressive ambiences of Fm3 or the environmental inputs of Ghislain Poirier, everything here is about impression and perception.
Despite collecting work from six artists, this album is incredibly consistent all the way through, and reinforces once again the intrinsic notion of quality releases from the label and the pertinent ear of its founder, Philippe Petit.

4.6/5

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Eklectra
ER03
Elusive Recordings 2004
20 Tracks. 79mins04secs

A similar concept runs through Dublin’s Elusive Recordings’ first compilation, Eklectra, although with a totally different theme. Following a first EP and album from label owner Felix Rex, aka Esoterica, the label, which vows to avoid any type of ‘genre fixation’, briefed twenty artists to create warm melodic music by whichever mean. This results in Eklectra being at once sonically consistent and extremely varied, going from soft ambient pop reminiscent of Air (Jimmy Behan’s A Normal Situation) to beautiful down tempo electro (Halfset’s Noodles Now) to experimental (Herv’s Box Enthusiast) without ever appearing to drift away for the original brief. Most artists adopt sumptuous melodic structures for the occasion, drawing the listener’s attention to particular details on each track, whether it is a melancholic baseline, vocal samples, an unusual beat pattern, or simply luscious arrangements. Every care has been taken to make the journey as easy and comfortable as possible, with areas specially prepared for rewarding breaks (Illegal Kids’ It’s Not For You, Chequerboard’s Konichiwa or Felix Rex and Eddie Rocket’s Guitar Symphony) along the way. It is however with the more robust compositions that the listener will get the full impact of this album. Halfset’s Noodles Now is first to impress with its delicate glitchy beat and melodic bassline, but Stereo Nimrod’s Nodoing Nodoer, which follows, appears more upfront, merging elements of funk and ambient electronica with strings samples to create something totally unique. The pastoral soundscapes of Schtat’s My Country Blues is Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy in evening dress, while Thalamus AlPHabet evokes the playfulness of early Black Dog records. Later, the album becomes more urban with the likes of Formica V MJX or Roytron passing elements of hip-hop through digital blender before Murmansk’s Sky-wide & Crooked and Felix Rex two collaborations, one with Eddie Rocket and the other with guitarist Bill Nelson, bring back the peace.
This is no ordinary label compilation. Conceived as a stand-alone piece, Eklectra is a superb collection of subtle dreamy electronica.

4.1/5

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Region Zero: A Boltfish Sampler
BOLT007
Boltfish 2004
11 Tracks. 49mins31secs

MP3 labels have become increasingly influential and important over the last three-to-four years, reflecting the radical change of habits in the way people consume music. The downside of this is that, due to the ever-growing number of MP3 labels around, it has become difficult to find your way through to the good ones, and harder for these labels to get heard and noticed.
Founded only a few months ago, in January 2004, by long time friends and collaborators Wil Bolton (aka Cheju) and Murray Fisher (aka Mint), London-based Boltfish already counts four EPs under its belt, with more announced soon. In order to reward its audience and get the necessary exposure to develop its audience, the Boltfish team have put together a compilation album featuring tracks taken from the aforementioned EPs by Mint, Zainetica, Karmøy and Bal-a-klah-va, together with further contributions form Ochre, J.Auer and Cheju, all three already found on the recent Rednetic compilation One Plus One, and a handful of others.
Region Zero owes its title to the international character of the label’s roster, with artists coming from England, Japan, France, Norway, Thailand and the USA. Spanning a wide range of musical landscapes, from the soft ambiences of Cheju’s Camellia or Bah-a-klah-va’s Anamorph to the electro influences of Karmøy’s Klem, the vintage electronica of Zainetica’s Disorder or the acoustic mood of Richard Houghten’s superb Untitled #3. The quality is exceptionally high for such a young label. Most of the tracks presented here evolve between warm analogue soundscapes, gentle glitch, and acoustic elements, creating an interesting emotional canvas all the way through.
The concept behind Boltfish is to provide electronic music for free on the Internet. Therefore, Region Zero is made available for download on the label’s website. But Boltfish have also taken the step to release this album onto proper CD for a limited run of three hundred copies. And amongst the myriad of MP3 labels around, Boltfish’s deserves to get noticed in every possible way.

4.4/5