Admittedly, 'Yagga Blues' and 'Soresucker' are not my favorite singles from NWW, but if you're developing your collection of Wound music and have yet to pick the two up, this disc will fill that gap conveniently. Unfortunately if you're a die-hard and own these two already, the extended versions of both the title track and "Journey Through Cheese" are a mild annoyance. "Funeral Music" is perhaps one of my fave NWW tracks. The music embraces beauty through layers of lengthy harmonically compatible samples, 'centering around a shakuhachi phrase played by David Jackman in 1987' (according to the original liner notes). On this collection it lives lavishly in its full form, stretching well over 35 minutes, as opposed to the 9+ minute version which originally appeared six years ago. "Journey Through Cheese" is also bigger, stretching to about 25 minutes, but the extra 15 minutes to me just drags the song out far longer than it needs to go. "Yagga Blues" of course is a classic tune, incorporating primitive rhythmic loops with sound effects and a haunting echoing vocal track. The beats and themes were completely exhausted however on the full-lengther 'Who Can I Turn To Stereo' from 1996, the versions here are nice and compact, with a slightly abridged break time inbetween tracks (30 seconds on the previous release, down now to about five).

Jon Whitney