The folks at Darla always seem to be on the forefront of finding stylish music to grace our ears, and as a result, Darla’s long-running compilation series is always chock full of interesting little gems.  Unfortunately, as is the case with most comps of this nature, there’s also a fair amount of dross to wade through.  And given that this particular volume of Little Darla Has A Treat For You is a double album, that’s, well, doubly true.

There are 36 tracks in all.  But to tell you the truth, I find that most of them just sink in the background.  Which, I suppose, allows the truly good stuff to shine forth all the more brightly.

Aarktica’s contribution, “Summer Tunneling”, is the biggest revelation for me.  Jon DeRosa has been steadily moving away from the blissed out sounds of No Solace In Sleep, with mixed results IMHO.  But this track is one of the best things I’ve heard from him, period.  Beginning with noisy drum programs, the song eventually merges with various layers of guitars, some picked, some droney, to sound like the perfect blend of Hood’s glitch-hop and their earlier, more pastoral stuff.

Robin Guthrie’s “Argenta” is another perfect blend, this time of the more straightforward “rock” sound of his recent full-length with the shimmering, ethereal melodies that are associated with the Cocteau Twins at the height of their powers.  July Skies’ “Pevsner Broke Our Hearts” is as forlorn and nostalgic as one might expect, with more reliance on effected vocals than most of his stuff.

I Am Robot And Proud’s take on electronica is effortless and charming, with all of the melodies and programming hearkening back to Darla’s “drum n’ bliss” heyday.  Scottish cult band Lowlife has received a number of reissues in recent years, and “Ramafied” shows why, with Craig Lorentson’s powerful voice sounding forth over chiming guitars and surging, evocative basslines.  And those are just a few…

Even if these particular tracks don’t trip your trigger, there’s plenty of other stuff on here, from hip-hop to dreampop to electronica to stripped down European folk to lounge, and everything inbetween.

Little Darla Has A Treat For You can be ordered from Darla Records.

Ah Christmas.  ‘Tis truly the season for worshipping, spending time with friends and family, enjoying a myriad of beloved traditions, experiencing the joy of giving gifts to those in our lives, and—yes—putting up with lots and lots of really shitty music.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I find it very sadly ironic that this season, which, for many of us, is supposed to be a reminder and celebration of all that is good and holy in our lives, is characterized by some of the shallowest music you can imagine.

Case in point: I went out shopping with my wife the other night to an upscale clothing store.  And what should I hear over the store’s stereo but one treacly, commercialized slab of pap after another.  Either it was some flash-in-the-pan starlet doing her best to record a sexed-up version of some “traditional” holiday standard, or a faceless boy band earnestly wishing to spend a nice winter evening with their babies curled up by the fire, or some other interpretation of a classic that was sucked free of any spirit or meaning back in the 1980s.

After awhile, I just had to block it out lest my cynicism reawaken my inner Grinch, but I wouldn’t at all be surprised if a one or two tracks from Merry Mixmas—always nice to see the marketing department earning their Christmas bonus—piped in over the speakers.  As the title suggests, it’s a collection of Christmas classics remixed by a slew of DJs you’ve probably never heard of.  And as you might imagine, the results are almost uniformly bland.

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Somehow, I doubt that when Neil Halstead got his first delay pedal, or when the gals in Lush sang their first vocal harmony, or when the boys in Ride sculpted their first wave of sound, they thought about long-term impact of their actions.  And yet here we are, 15 years or so after the supposed heyday of shoegazer, only to find the genre is as strong as ever.  Sure, it may not have NME’s editors falling all over themselves anymore, but shoegazer is still alive and well.  And not just here in America or over the pond in the land of its birth, but all over the globe.

Who would’ve thought that a bunch of Estonian teenagers would get together, form a band called Pia Fraus, and write some of the best fuzz-pop since Split?  Or that shoegazer would put down roots in the Land of the Rising Sun?  But as the Seven Winters compilation shows, the latter is most definitely the case.  Featuring a wide array of guitar abusers from Aomori to Tokyo to Hiroshima—along with a couple of “gaijin” acts thrown in for good measure—Seven Winters is a rollicking, energetic comp that shows off some of the incredible diversity in the Japanese shoegaze scene (and then some).

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A few weeks ago, a guy came up to me at a concert and asked me some questions for a school project he was working on.  The project dealt with post-rock and the sorts of people who listen to it.  He asked me what shows I’d been too, where I bought music, what bands I listened to, and what labels I followed.  For that last question, only one word really had to be said—“Kranky”.

Perhaps moreso than any other label, Kranky has become intrinsically associated with the amorphous genre called “post-rock”.  Their roster reads like a virtual “Who’s Who”, and just like the genre can seemingly be anything to anyone, their musical output has ranged considerably, from the glacial atmospherics of Labradford and Stars Of The Lid to the apocalyptic stylings of Godspeed You Black Emperor!, from the left-field experimentation of Philosopher’s Stone to the grooves of Out Hud and Strategy.

It’s an impressive and diverse roster to be sure, and sure evidence of what is perhaps Kranky’s true legacy as a label—their ear for artists and releases that are both artistically challenging and also quite accessible.  They’ve somehow managed to straddle the line between the avant-garde and the masses, appealing to one end of the spectrum without distancing the other.

Kompilation is by no means a comprehensive compilation, and in fact, neglects a few of the label’s more well-known artists, i.e. Labradford, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Low (who have recently jumped ship to Sub Pop), and Windy & Carl.  The compilation focuses on the label’s post-2001 output, and works its way backwards as you go through the tracks.

Stars Of The Lid bookends Kompilation with “Even If You’re Never Awake” (taken from their upcoming album) and “Requiem For Dying Mothers Part 2” (taken from 2001’s The Tired Sounds Of…).  “Even If You’re Never Awake” is simply gorgeous and is some of the most compelling stuff I’ve heard from the Texas duo.  Building on the langorous drones present in “Requiem”, they’ve added a stronger melodic sense to their music, and the results are quite haunting.

Mark Nelson’s Pan-American also contributes two tracks, “What Do They Dream?” and “Inside Elevation”.  The latter is taken from Pan-American’s finest album to date, this year’s outstanding Quiet City and the former is exclusive to this release.  Like the Quiet City material, it too is meticulously composed—a 9-minute piece that seems to be in a perpetual state of fading away, from its eerie opening notes to the softly ebbing drones and crackly bursts of static that serve as its core.

Christina Carter’s “Silhouette” brings a folksy, acoustic facet to Kranky’s catalog—although “folksy” might not the most accurate term.  Carter doesn’t play her guitar so much as simply slap her pick against the strings with seemingly no pattern or structure, and yet the overall piece feels anything but random.  Growing’s 12-minute “Primitive Associations/Great Mass Above” is an epic composition full of tranquil field recordings (birds, oceans, etc.), shimmering guitar filaments, and exotic percussion.  It’s not exactly the most involving track, but serves as a lovely enough sonic backdrop.

It should be too surprising that The Dead Texan’s “When I See Scissors I Can’t Help But Think Of You” is reminiscent of Stars Of The Lid (Dead Texan Adam Wiltzie is 1/2 of SOTL),  However, the track is far busier than your typical SOTL track—relatively speaking that is—with guitar drones drifting alongside tinkling pianos and breathy vocals.  And Loscil rounds out the first disc with “Sickbay”, one of the stronger tracks from First Narrows, and one very much in the vein of Pan-American’s more recent efforts, though nowhere near as minimal or glacial.

Disc Two opens with a track by Charalambides, one of the more “love ‘em or hate ‘em” groups on Kranky, it seems.  Yet another track that sprawls past the 10 minute mark, the song is rather shapeless and directionless, as caterwauling female vocals swoop and dive amidst lazy, suspended guitars.  I know some people have dissed on Strategy’s Drumsolo’s Delight.  The comparisons to Pole’s glitchy form of dub (think CD 2) are readily apparent within the opening seconds of “Drumsolo’s Delight”, perhaps painfully so for some—but I find it to be a rather enjoyable background track, and the same goes for the album as a whole.

Out Hud has been one of the real highlights of the Kranky roster within the past couple of years, and “Dad, There’s A Little Thing Called Too Much Information” is a perfect example why.  Combining Gang Of Four’s brittle guitars with irresistible dance grooves, cacophonous techno, and slabs of noise, the track is easily one of the catchiest and funkiest things ever released by Kranky, and only makes me all the more anxious for the band’s followup to S.T.R.E.E.T.D.A.D (due out sometime next year).

Speaking of groove, Fontanelle’s “Monday Morning” is an epic pysch-rock piece that manages to get down while also streaking high across the stratosphere.  Seemingly random blips and bleeps flitter across sparse bass notes and scattered percussion, but the track slowly builds up steam as wah guitars and swampy, Tortoise-y textures begin rolling in.  Soon, the track is off and running, giving nods to both krautrock and Isaac Hayes as it continues on its off-kilter bearing.

Finally, Jessica Bailiff’s solo offering, “Swallowed”, proves to be a touch more interesting than the earlier track from Clear Horizon (Bailiff’s project with Flying Saucer Attack frontman Dave Pearce).  Bailiff’s breathy voice seems lost amidst curtains of strummed acoustic guitars (reminiscent of Soul Whirling Somewhere, for some reason), light drones, and harp-like flourishes, slowly wandering about and invested with a certain sense of wide-eyed wonder at the sonic surroundings.

All in all, this compilation is an absolute steal, especially considering it costs less than an EP and that there’s not much filler at all.  If you’re unfamiliar with Kranky, or are simply curious about this whole “post-rock” thing that’s been going around for the past couple of years, than this is an almost necessary purchase.  It’s full of examples of why Kranky is one of the most essential—and consistent—labels currently out there in indie-dom.  And even if you’re an obsessive Kranky-phile and have already heard everything offered by the label—and I know you’re out there—it’s worth getting if only for the Stars Of The Lid preview and the exclusive Pan•American track.

Radical Turf Records is a relatively new electronica (for lack of a better term) label that got its start in 2003.  And although this is the only release under the fledgling label’s belt so far, the artists featured on this compilation have all been active in various underground scenes for quite some time.  As a result, the comp is far from an amateur-esque affair.

Given that this the label’s first release, it’s still too early to tell where they’ll be at in a few year’s time—all their website basically says is “Turf does hope to stylistically embrace the future while respecting the past”.  But I get a definite Darla Records vibe throughout the CD, specifically Darla of the late 90s/early 00s when they were consistently putting out releases by the likes of Junior Varsity KM, Sweet Trip, Color Filter, and Flowchart.  Which is by no means a bad thing in my book, as Darla has been one of the most eclectic and affluent indietronica labels out there.

The comp kicks off in high style with Coin Operated’s “Can You Feel It?”, a humorous and nostalgic piece that blends samples of kids discovering the joys of a synthesizer with bubbling analog goodness and infectious rhythms.  Think classic 808 State or even Flowchart’s Cumulus Mood Twang.  Ike Mentry’s “Fossilized Laptops” is one of the disc’s more captivating tracks, with stratospheric synth lines soaring high above Kraftwerk-esque tone clusters as a fog of analog noise hovers nearby, waiting to envelop everything.

Mike Taylor takes a slightly darker direction with “FX->DY”, as deep-seated analog basslines squirm and squelch away beneath squiggly keys.  Synaptic Flow’s “Almost Dawn” is classic drum ‘n’ bass, full of soft ambient textures and stuttering beats that take me right back to the 90s.  The aptly-titled Glossolalia contributes the aptly-titled “Hologram God Food”, a lovely assortment of fluttering, Reich-esque synth textures and soft, pulsing microbeats.

However, other parts of disc a tab spottier.  Quetzatl’s drum ‘n’ bass just seems too simplistic as it plods along with its funk-derived basslines.  Light Body Vehicle can’t quite seem to find a rhythm that works on “Sounds Good To Me”, and as a result, spends the entire track shifting between any and every loop he can think of, with predictably uneven and jumbled results.  And Konrad tries to one-up Squarepusher’s jazzy breakbeats with some of his own, this time upping the jazz quotient.  But it just doesn’t quite work, the beats sounding incredibly incongruous and tacked on to the jazz instrumentation. 

Overall, though, Tales From The Oxygen Den is a pretty solid comp, and is quite inline with the label’s stated goal of respecting the past.  However, they perhaps show it a bit too much respect.  Depending on your tastes, and how demanding you are that your electronica be new and cutting edge, you might find the sounds and styles on Tales From The Oxygen Den fairly dated.  I prefer to think of them as “classic”, even somewhat “nostalgic” in the case of Coin Operated and Synaptic Flow.

Am I the only one who loves split albums and wish more bands would do them?  I get to see two bands give it their all, half and half, and sometimes it becomes a competition of sorts. With the Big Action Records release Teetering On The Edge Of Destruction, we see two bands splitting the music this time. The Gammits MW and Members Of The Yellow Press. I’ll judge it seperately and give an overall score of sorts.

The Gammits MW start off this split (which is something of a misnomer, as they take up about 65% of the disc) with good old school, purposeful punk. The purpose is to get you off your ass and just enjoy the music. Jake Witter’s vocals are killer while the rest of the band (Leif Barsness on drums, Angela Salvo on guitars and Ian Lambert on bass) support him to keep the 12 tracks blistering throughout. Makes you wonder how long they’ve been playing with one another, as it meshes so well. 8.5 out of 10 for their set.

The next band only has 7 songs on this split. Members Of The Yellow Press come in on their own way, not punk music like the former tracks before them, but going for a more garage rock feel with muddled guitars and airy vocals. Not a bad thing whatsoever. Some parts sound like a psychotic stage show gone wrong (“Blink & Breathe”) while others sound as if the song was written underwater (“Causes”). I’d like to hear more by them, but they didn’t hook me in as well as The Gammits MW did.  7.0 out of 10 for them.

I always round upwards because I’m a nice guy. So as a whole, the split gets an 8 out of 10. Go to Big Action Records to check out some other cool bands as well.

Written by James McCormick.

No offense to the fine folks at Fractured Discs, but Low seems like an odd choice for a tribute album if you ask me.  It’s not that the Minnesota trio haven’t been prolific (they’ve released 6 albums in the past 10 years, along with numerous singles, EPs, live albums, and retrospectives) or influential (although Low didn’t create “slowcore”, it’s a safe bet that they’re the ones who immediately leap to mind 99% of the time whenever the genre is mentioned).  By all accounts, Low certainly deserves to be paid some sort of tribute for the way in which they’ve shaped indie music’s slower forms over the past decade.

However, the very nature of their music, with its subtlety and restraint even at its most rawk (i.e. Trust‘s “Canada”), seems to resist any sort of hallowed celebrity treatment—such as a tribute album.  Furthermore, what more can be said about Low’s music?  Rarely has a band made music so definitive, so able to completely stand on its own, with little need of reinterpretation.  How do you cast Low in a new light without destroying the very thing about their music that makes it distinctively Low-esque, or rehashing what the band has already stated countless times?

Besides, Low has done plenty of reinterpretation of their own, whether it’s partnerships with Spring Heel Jack and The Dirty Three, their unlikely covers, side projects (such as Alan Sparhawk and Zak Sally’s Hospital People), or even performing some of their definitive songs (“Words”, “Over The Ocean”) in a Misfits style.

With these thoughts in mind, I approached We Could Live In Hope with a wee bit of trepidation.  And I’m still of mixed opinion.  When taken on its own merits, the compilation has plenty of high points.  However, in the grander scheme of things, it just serves as a reminder that nobody, but nodody, does it as anywhere near as well as Low.

I’ve made no secret of my lacklustre impressions of Pale Horse And Rider, Jon De Rosa’s (Aarktica) tongue-in-cheek acoustic/country-western side project.  However, his lap steel-drenched version of “Fear” is quite a lovely track, burnishing De Rosa’s drawl with plenty of lovely tones.  Meanwhile, A Northern Chorus delivers what might be the album’s most gorgeous moment.  Their drifting version of “Slide” (as you might’ve gathered by the tribute’s title, all of the covers come from Low’s first album) has meandering violins and cloud-like guitars slowly combining with sparse percussion and weary male/female harmonies, with lovely results.

Kid Dakota’s “Lullaby” is one of the album’s more original covers, even going so far as to drop new lyrics over sputtering rhythms, dusty guitars (acoustic and steel), and background atmospherics.  In its more stripped down moments, it comes quite close to capturing the tension that made Low’s debut such a revealing listen in the first place.  The same could be said of Migala’s brooding take on “Words”, which places thick, Nick Cave-esque vocals over eerie, atmospheric chanting and sparse arrangements.

Of all the covers, however, those by Jessica Bailiff and Idaho probably intrigued me the most.  Both are artists of whom I’ve heard a great deal, and yet I’m not at all familiar with their music.  Bailiff’s cover of “Down” is worlds removed from her drone-oriented work in Clear Horizon, with twilight sounds serving as the backdrop of layers of Bailiff’s guitar and dreamy vocals.  If her solo work is at all like that, I’ve got some catching up to do.  And despite owning an Idaho album, I’ve never really listened to any of Jeff Martin’s work.  Therefore, his cover of “Rope” is something of a revelation to me.  Rolling pianos, static-y programming, violins, and Supersilent-esque textures merge with Martin’s yawning vocals in a manner that is quite evocative.

But even with such solid songs, the question still niggling at the back of my mind is whether or not the compilation furthers my appreciation for Low.  And to that, I still don’t quite have an answer.  However, I will say that, as great as some of these covers are, they still don’t measure up at all to the originals.  Which is to reaffirm just how great Low’s music has often been in the past.  If nothing else, I can say that We Could Live In Hope has caused me to want to go back and revisit one of my favorite bands, if only to see how it’s really done.  And I suppose that might be all that one can really ask of a tribute album.

Now, bring on A Lifetime Of Temporary Relief.

If there’s one genre that I can honestly say that I love, it’s shoegazer pop.  But then again, that should be a giveaway if you’ve spent anytime browsing the reviews on this site.  Although shoegazing really reached its zenith in the mid-90s, it wasn’t until the late 90s that I discovered and fell in love with it.  Which just happened to be when the genre was in serious decline, becoming overshadowed by the rise of Oasis and Britpop (despite the fact that Oasis’ early music was shoegazing in nature and that one shoegazing group, The Boo Radleys, was one of the best Britpop groups around).

This comp, though far from comprehensive, focuses on a small slice of time from shoegazing’s heyday, spotlighting some of the genre’s best known acts.  However, to my delight, it also spotlights a handful of (to me) lesser-known artists, artists I never had a chance to check out before their records sadly became obscure or out of print.

Of course, mention the word “shoegazing” and several artists readily come to mind, and the comp pays them their dues.  Ride contributes “Like A Daydream”, from 1990’s Smile.  It’s a bit more uptempo and poppy than the band’s seminal work, which would come surface in the gloriously dreary atmospheres of Nowhere (also released in 1990).  Still, it’s a fine display of the group’s reckless energy, and their yearning vocal harmonies—although shoegazing was widely known for utilizing blissful male/female harmonies, Ride used male harmonies to great effect.

In my humble opinion, no shoegazing comp would ever be complete without a track from Slowdive (quite possible the most perfect band to ever grace God’s green earth), and the comp features one of their finest songs.  “Catch The Breeze” (taken from the band’s first album, 1991’s Just For A Day) is one of those songs, landmark songs that just change the way you look at music.  Even now, almost 10 years after I first heard them, those giant, soaring walls of sound that close out the song still move me.

I’d only heard Pale Saints after Ian Masters left the band, with my first introduction being 1994’s Slow Buildings, which many consider their worst album (though I personally thing it’s pretty solid).  “Sea Of Sound” (taken from 1990’s The Comforts Of Madness) captures the band in their early days with a lovely slice of dreamy pop, with silvery, ringing guitars gliding over Masters’ voice.

If you’ve heard one Lush song, you’ve practically heard them all.  The group seemed to use the same melodic sense, not to mention guitar effects, on all of their recordings.  However, that’s hardly a complaint when the result of that consistency is “De-Luxe”, which showcases the group’s pop rush and the trademark harmonies of Miki Berenjyi and Emma Anderson.

The comp wraps things up with Swervedriver, probably shoegazing’s most “rawk” outfit.  While a lot of shoegazer songs are perfect for long drives out on the highway in the midst of grey autumn days, Swervedriver’s music, or at least the Raise album, is better suited for doing 90mph down a desert highway with the cops in hot pursuit.  “Rave Down” is a pure adrenaline rush, with turbocharged guitars and thundering drums tearing along at a breakneck pace.

However, while it’s always a joy to hear Ride or Slowdive, the real draw of this comp for me was the chance to finally hear a slew of bands that, up until now, I’d only read about on newsgroups, mailing lists, and the All-Music Guide.  Blind Mr Jones’ “Small Caravan” might be the most compelling song on the comp, though I’ll confess that I first mistook it for a Nowhere-era Ride song.  Indeed, the song features the same churning, slightly sinister atmospherics lurking about the song’s edge, and the lyrics (“We might find we’re two of a kind/And I’ll never have to pretend/That I’m feeling fine”) express the same sort of alienation and detachment.  But once I realized my mistake, I began to appreciate the song more, and it’s one of my faves on the album.

I do own The Telescopes’ latest album, 2001’s Third Wave (which, regrettably, I haven’t given much playtime), my eyes weren’t really opened until I heard “All A Dreams”.  Ranking right up there with “Catch The Breeze” as the comp’s most languid track, “All A Dreams” is just that, full of shimmering guitars, hazy atmospherics, and vocals that drift by in the finest shoegazer tradition, all cloud-like and intangible.  I think I need to give “Third Wave” a few more spins, if only to see how it compares with this lovely track.

One thing that struck me about this comp is how exuberant many of these bands sound.  I’ve often identified shoegazing as a more introspective music, perfect for those times and moods when you want music that’ll embrace you as you brood or pine away for a bit.  But many of these tracks positively rock out.

Revolver kicks off the comp with “Heaven Sent An Angel”, which doesn’t wrap you in heavenly sonics so much as get your toes a-tapping and head a-nodding.  Of course, the lyrics are pure shoegazer, full of pining and youthful romanticism, but overall, the track almost sounds like prototypical Britpop (which just supports my conspiracy theory that all of the popular British rock of the past 15 years would never have existed if not for this oft-derided genre).

The same holds true for Moose’s “Last Night I Fell Again”, which barrels along right from the start (and makes me wish, oh wish, that some early Boo Radleys had been included).  Drop Nineteens’ “Winona” is full of fuzz, with the vocals barely distinguishable from the thick, droney haze of noise that just seems to hang there; only thin slivers of guitar manage to rise above the morass from time to time.  And Adorable’s “Sunshine Smile” just piles on the chiming guitars and sappy lyrics (“She’s got a sunshine smile/The kind that makes you forget again”) until the song collapses and turns into yet another pop moment that presages Oasis et al.

I think this energy is attributable to the comp’s focus on shoegazing’s early years, when bands were first discovering this beautiful noise.  While many of shoegazing’s greatest moments were considerably more melancholic and obtuse (much of Slowdive’s catalog, My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless”), this youthful rush of sound is nice to hear.

I’d love to see some label/distributor (Rhino, I’m looking at you) put out a massively comprehensive survey of shoegazing, from its inception to its relegation to the underground by Britpop’s rise, and on to it’s recent resurgence.  I’d love to hear the bands on this comp, as well as the likes of The Boo Radleys, Kitchens Of Distinction, Catherine Wheel, Chapterhouse, The House Of Love, and so many more put in their proper historical place.

But until that blessed day, this comp is a good enough place to start.  It can give plenty of young hipsters who’ve discovered Sigur Ros a nice sense of context and history (not to mention a slew of bands they need to check out—hint: start with Slowdive), as well as those of us who’ve been enamored with shoegazer for years a reminder of just why we love this music so much.