"Touch 25"

To celebrate a quarter century of great compilations and albums by many exciting artists, Touch have released this new compilation. 25 exclusive tracks featuring most of Touch’s luminaries sum up both Touch’s history and mission perfectly while at the same time showing that Touch still know how to make a great compilation (an art that is neglected by nearly every other label).

 

Touch

The disc is presented in a digipack with an included that contains lots of beautiful photos by label head/graphic designer Jon Wozencroft. Some of these have been included in previous releases on the label but it’s nice to see them again. Wozencroft also contributes a number of short field recordings ranging from a recording of an air captain’s announcement before landing to plumbing to a myriad of noises I cannot identify (the liner notes are non-existent for these recordings). These brief vignettes clear the aural palate between the meatier contributions.

Staying with field recordings, Chris Watson has provided two pieces to Touch 25. Unusually for Watson, these two pieces are fairly pedestrian (no, not recordings of people walking). Neither piece holds my attention for long which is especially unfortunate as both of them are less than three minutes each. The aforementioned recordings by Wozencroft have more vitality to them. As does Jacob Kirkegaard’s “Heavy Water [Bärseback],” a recording of water from a nuclear plant’s cooling system which captures the power and menace associated with splitting atoms.

Oren Ambarchi’s “Moving Violation” is one of my fave pieces on the album. The looped guitar hum and drone  shows how much he has contributed to Sunn O)))’s last album. In fact, without the riffing Ambarchi’s guitar playing sounds more threatening. In stark contrast to Ambarchi is “Tree” by Fennesz which follows immediately. His acoustic guitar playing is warm and delicate; soft electronics smooth the edges of his playing. The difference between these two artists highlights the range of artists that Touch has championed over the years.

The jewel that shines more than any other on Touch 25 is Jóhann Jóhnannssonn’s “Tu Non Mi Perderai Mai.” It is haunting, beautiful and transcendental. I keep coming back to this particular piece to play and play again. Although the liner notes state that it is just two instruments (a ring modulated Hammond organ and a cello) it sounds like there are a host of synthesisers and sequencers at work. The natural sounding cello sounds almost unnatural with the celestial Hammond sounding like it’s going into orbit.

Not surprisingly but still disappointingly is the complete absence of material by The Hafler Trio considering Andrew McKenzie was such a central part of Touch for so many years. As such I find it quite odd, despite whatever differences there are between them, that McKenzie is not at least mentioned somewhere on a compilation celebrating the past, present and future of Touch.

Aside from that Touch 25 is a wonderful compilation, few compilers show as much quality control as the folks at Touch have. Unlike the vast majority of compilations, this disc runs smoothly like a good album by a single artist. Considering the scope of artists and styles appearing on Touch 25, this is some feat.

samples:

• Fennesz - Tree
• Jóhann Jóhannsson - Tu Non Mi Perderai Mai
• Philip Jeck - Hindquarters