VARIOUS ARTISTS
Sampler 5.00 Ai Records 2000-2005
AI010CD
Ai Records 2005
13 Tracks. 64mins47secs

Although having quietly developed in the background, AI Records have nevertheless become, in the five years they have been operating, a truly innovative imprint, with a solid roster gathered around the project of AI co-founder Steve Hyland, Normal, and including the likes of Yellotone, FZV and Claro Intelecto. Celebrating their fifth anniversary with an album sampler split between previously released recordings and brand new tracks from a wide range of artists, including a handful of new signings, AI Records are undoubtedly looking at raising their profile.

Often compared to defining electronic labels such as Warp, Reflex or Skam, AI Records have generated their own brand of electronic music, heavily influenced by the late eighties/early nineties Detroit and Chicago scenes. The first half of this compilation clearly asserts these connections. The album opens with the playful-yet-heavy footed electro of Claro Intelecto’s 2000, before moving to more subdued territories with the sumptuous Yellotone track Cool Blue Albion. Although radically different in tones, these two tracks pretty much sums up the poles between which AI Records have developed, and have actually far more in common than meets the ear. The remaining five tracks lifted from the label’s archive are all set at specific points in between, from the laidback Slowknit (Normal) to the straightforward dance beat and disturbing claustrophobic ambience of Confutatis’s Obsession.

The second half of this album showcases some of the forthcoming releases to be expected this year. Kicking off with Yunx’s Dis Go Funk Ur Ass, which evolves in near deep-house territory, the album returns to more abstract grounds with Dubh On Dubh, taken from Normal’s forthcoming debut album. Subside’s stunning Scarlett’s Theme hints at richly textured soundscapes, while Jacen Solo’s Shake and Sinner DC’s Wintertown reflect on the foundation of modern electronica, investigating early nineties electronica and eighties techno pop respectively.

This sampler provides a rather good, if somewhat frustratingly too short, overview of the work of AI Records during their first five years of existence, and demonstrates why their artists have continuously gathered praises for their individual releases. Here’s to the next five years!

4.4/5

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Progress - The Trieste - Vladivostok Ex. 04 Line
RXTXCD06
TR:TX 2005
16 Tracks. 70mins58secs

Despite remaining largely overlooked by ‘the West’, Eastern Europe has seen electronic music infiltrating the culture of the myriad of countries that emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the communist regime in the USSR.

Set up in 2002 by a group of Slovenians acting in fields as diverse as music, conceptual art, electronic and architecture, RX:TX has since provided a platform for East European musicians to present their work, and has also welcome releases from established West European artists such as Scanner or Laurent Pernice and Jacques Barberi. The first release from the label, Signal Territory was a collaborative work between some of the RX:TX’s founding members originally recorded in 1997. The label then went on to release Progress: The Trieste – Vladivostok Ctm. 03 Line to coincide with Berlin’s Club Transmedial’s Go East season of programs in 2003.

At the end of 2004, Progress 04 took place in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. Aimed at promoting East European electronic music through a variety of events and performances. Some of the artists who performed there now see their work included on this new compilation. Bringing together acts from Slovelnia, Croatia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and Ukraine, this second volume in the Progress series collects a wide range of atmospheres and styles.

The album opens with the digital processing of Evgeiy Droomoff & Sound Meccano’s Fibre 1: Wool Fibre, which is in many ways reminiscent of Murcof, and Kleemar’s delicate Someone Who You Nod To before the quirkily named Karaoke Mouse inject some elements of hip-hop and techno into a rather well crafted piece. The rest of the album is not always as successful but still unearths some interesting artists and tracks along the way. Most impressive are Volga’s ethnic disco on Na Gorushke, Octex’s dubbey Kleep, Puna Syndicate’s comatose hip-hop beats of Bimmons and the perverse electro-jazz of Harlem Underground’s Rubjoff, while the dense soundscape and thick atmospheric setting of Tigrics’s Rapulin 4 and Random Logic’s Contep drag this album into murkier territories.

The album comes complete with a booklet providing background information on each of the sixteen artists featured. Although sometimes a bit hit and miss, this album offers an overall high quality selection of varied electronic atmospheres and will hopefully provide the artists involved with the exposure they deserve.

3.7/5