Volume four kicks off with a rather empty, unnecessary piece from MiraCalix with unchallenging beats, irritating clicks, melodically absent,with a pointless vocal loop. Luckily the deep echoes of si-(cut).dbjump in with two nuveau dub-ish bits which could easily bury Pole.Twine's slick combination of guitar and other organic elements inside asaturated electronic mix has gained the duo attention from both theChicago-based Hefty Records and Bip-Hop labels. I've been eagerlyanticipating their next full-length record (ones are in store for bothrecord companies according to the booklet notes). Datach'i has beenreleasing quirky, almost comical instrumental glitch-pop for the lastfew years on the NY-based Caipirinha, and while he's always had a goodresponse from fans and other musicians, I've always thought there wassomething missing from his music. Don't get me wrong, it is pleasant tolisten to, but nothing I have to go out of my way to drop loads ofcashola on. Maybe it's just not pretentious or German enough to betaken seriously, or it's completely lacking in concept. [Maybe afterlistening to hours of this I'm ready to give up.] The rest of thecollection is taken up by France's Vs_Price and Australia's Cray.Vs_Price contributes two gentle, unoffensive clicky bass kick-happyhead-bobbers while Cray ends the collection with a nearly 15-minutesoundtrack to an adventure horribly gone awry. It's like waking up onemorning inside a computer, enjoying the scenery, taking in all thesights, but then trying like mad to get out. There's quite a lot ofnicely varied electronic movements to this never stale track, whichalmost leaves the listener hanging, waiting for some kind of closure.
Thankfully, curator Philippe Petit has recognizably hand-assembledeach of these comps with a genuine love of music by not saturating thecollections with his own label's artists (haven't seen Tennis norSpaceheads pop up here yet!) Be on the lookout for V.5, due out laterthis month.
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