VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Noise & The City
MOULIN08
Autres Directions 2004
30 Tracks. 122mins38secs

Started as a webzine, Autres Directions (Other Directions) has progressively evolved to include an online record label, which now counts just under ten releases. For this compilation, the brief was relatively simple: take thirty artists from all over the world, and ask them to create a musical piece built entirely on sounds sourced in and around their city, with no additional instrument. A journey around the world in thirty cities, leaving from Nantes, where the label is based, then visiting London, Manchester, Brussels, Cologne, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Moscow, Tokyo, Adelaid, Sydney, Wellington, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima, San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, Montreal, Barcelona, Paris and finally back to Nantes. A truly extraordinary project, which gives the rare chance to sample flavours from experimental artists around the world. The result is sometimes fascinating, often intriguing. Featuring a cohort of renowned and less known artists, including Galatklan, Novel 23, E*rock, Greg Davis, Pan American or Melodium to name but a few, The Noise & The City offers extremely contrasted moments, ranging from abstract interpretation to beautiful electronic moments (Galaktlan) to purely atmospheric recordings (Greg Davis presents a collage of apparently untouched recordings arranged together as if the listener was walking through streets and parks, a piece of work which sits somewhere between his usual sonic universe and the drone-based aspect of his work as featured on the recent Somnia).
The strength of this project resides precisely in the fact that the transcriptions of the artists’ cities differ so much, perhaps highlighting the different lifestyles found around the globe and the considerable cultural variations found on this record. It also surely reveals the variety of approach to electronic music as an art form. Although this album at times fails to deliver entirely, it remains a very satisfying and diverse collection of electronic-based music.

4.1/5

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Intricate Maximals
AB006
Audiobulb Records 2005
18 Tracks. 78mins48secs

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Another net label that is currently making a mark is Sheffield-based Audiobulb Records. Having already released a CD, Switches, in 2004, the Audiobulb team returns with Intricate Maximals, which collects the work of eighteen artists scattered around the world. Yet, the only concept behind this project is to let artists free of experimenting in whichever way they see fit, a principle that has served the label well until now.
Intricate Maximals collects works from the label’s regular roster (Disastrato, Autistici, Claudia or new comer Calika) as well as guests, including the likes of Ochre, Prhizzm or Another Electronic Musician. The eighteen tracks presented here have all in common, as the title of this compilation suggests, to be extremely diverse intricate electronic constructions, ranging from warm analogue electronic (Ochre, Taavi Tulev) to glitch-ridden compositions (Calika, Marion) or complex organic formations (Diagram Of Suburban Chaos), each defining a particular sonic space for the artist to evolve in. From entirely electronic soundscapes to field recordings and acoustic instrumentations, there is a great diversity of sources to be found here. Despite the apparent mechanical aspect of some of the music presented here, the listener is reminded of the human implication behind these compositions by the use of vocal samples, as on Diagram Of Suburban Chaos’s So Gone or Disastrato’s Requiem Pour Une Feuille Morte.
Surprisingly, Intricate Maximals sounds far more consistent than could be first expected, as if a running theme had been specifically devised to accommodate the vision of Audiobulb, yet, it is this very vision that shapes this collection, crafting every particular angle of each track. Intricate Maximals is no short of impressive and continue to show Audiobulb as an imprint to rely on.

4.5/5

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Where We’re At
STS090
Smalltown Supersound 2004
09 Tracks. 51mins25secs
 

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Runeology 2
RCDS2
Rune Grammofon 2004
10 Tracks. 70mins41secs

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That both Smalltown Supersound and Rune Grammofon have chosen the same moment to release a sampler of their respective catalogue present and forthcoming is surely no coincidence. Based in Oslo, both labels have done a lot to promote Nordic music and export talents outside of Scandinavia in the last five years, bringing artists such as Jaga Jazzist, Kim Hiorthøy or Yuishiro Fujimoto for Smalltown Supersound, or Supersilent, Deathprod, Spunk or Alog for Rune Grammofon. The similarity between the two labels doesn’t stop here. Both have consistently focused on a variety of music forms, from purely electronic to experimental jazz to experimental full stop. These two album samplers, both made available at a special low price, present tracks taken from recently released and forthcoming EPs and albums, so there is no exclusive material here. If it is the first release of this kind for Smalltown Supersound, Rune Grammofon published the first Runeology, which was given away to subscribers of The Wire in September 2001.
Perfect introduction to these respective labels, these samplers provide an insight into the labels’ unique sound. While Where We’re At features tracks from Lars Horntveth’s superb Pooka, Kim Hiorthøy’s Hopeness EP, Jaga Jazzist’s recently reissued Magazine album or Yuichiro Fujimoto’s Komorebi album, it also provides an opportunity to sample the work of newly signed Mental Overdrive, transferring from R&S and Virgin, and Toy, an act hailing from Bergen, already responsible of a single on Telle Records. Toy’s Decorama is a sixties-influenced composition reminiscent in part of the work of the seminal BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This track also feeds on incidental music, yet is given here an interesting pop twist. Mental Overdrive offers a more classic take on electronic music here, based on a haunting child vocal sample used to work a simple melodic line layered over beautifully crisp electronica.
Runeology 2 only features one new signing, Shining, a jazz formation set up by two former Jaga Jazzist musicians, and who have released two albums before signing to Rune Grammofon. Aleister Explains Everything, taken from their forthcoming In The Kingdom Of The Kitsch You Will Be A Monster album, is a vibrant manifestation of the band’s slight change of direction, adapting their original jazz form to much rockier ground. Elsewhere, Runeology 2 offers insights into the work of Deathprod, Arve Henriksen, Alog, Phohophani, Food, Scorch Trio, Nils Økland and many more. These ten tracks highlight perfectly the incredible variety of music published on the label and the constant quality of its releases.
If both releases might seem no more than collector items to die-hard fans, they provide however an ideal point of entry for anyone who has heard of these labels and is curious to find their way through their current catalogue.

Where We're At 3.9/5 Runeology 4/5