This year, 4AD's UK office has been reintroducing the public to thecatalogue of some of their former brightest stars. Heidi Berry'santhology "Pomegranate" gathers 14 songs from her three 4AD albums andadds a few extra bits. 4AD fans might not know her name but they sureknow her voice, as it's all over the final This Mortal Coil album,'Blood'. Her first album was released in 1989 but her first record for4AD, 'Love' was released in 1991 shortly after This Mortal Coil's'Blood'. 'Pomegranate' jumbles up her tracks in a non-chronologicalorder, with the basic folk-inspired acoustic songs interwoven withsongs with lush string arrangements and captivating swirling pianomelodies. There's something magical about that voice which shines invarious spots but can also get quite improperly placed when accompaniedby the Lost Girls in the collection's closer, "Needle's Eye". 
"Life in the Gladhouse" collects 16 album and single tracks from ModernEnglish between the years 1980 and 1984. While most people in the worldwill only credit them for the mega retro feel-good 80s anthem "I MeltWith You," the group had a much darker, angry and artful repertoirestretching over the course of three notable albums. Program the CD toplay the songs in chronological order and you can see how the groupcame into existence during the punk movement and exited during theearly 80s wave of new romantics. While I don't usually agree to "bestof" compilations from groups who only have three albums represented, acollection like this or Heidi Berry's will be helpful to people who arefamiliar with the small slice, but interested in hearing more. InModern English's case it's the big hit, only popularized long after itsinception, Heidi Berry's case being the voice of 'Blood.'
"Ciao!,"on the other hand makes less sense. The group's popularity was muchstronger and to release a best of from a group also with a three-albumcareer like this is rather unnecesary. Unlike the past two collections,there is a chronological order executed here, in reverse however. Thedisc only grabs a few hits and some popular album tracks, heavy on thecatty most recent stuff (including the gratuitous Javis Crocker duetfrom 'Lushlife') and light on the beautiful two-girl harmonies onlayers upon layers of guitar wash, which captured everybody's attentionand love of the group in the first place. I fell in love with Lush'smusic over a decade ago and still hold much of their music dear to myheart, yet I'm not endorsing this collection. If they really wanted torelease a worthy retrospective, a collection of b-sides and compilationtracks would be wonderful. Over their short career, the group hasaccumulated an impressive non-album repertoire which couldn't fit onanything less than two lengthy compact discs.
ThePixies were arguably one of the most influential bands of the late 80sand also arguably the last truly alternative band to gain recognitionon a large scale. They intelligently and almost accidentally combinedsmart riffs with surf-punk and abstract lyrics with hooks catchy enoughto make Lennon and McCartney jealous. In 1991, following the band'sfinal album, Nirvana fucked everything up, thrusting recycled Pixiesriffs repackaged as 'grunge' into the mainstream, merging 'alternative'and top 40 radio, forcing them all to cater to the new incarnation ofpop music. Thankfully it also surpressed hair bands, until thefollowing year when Pearl Jam surfaced as a repackaged Winger. I couldgo on for hours on the subsequent decline in individuality andextinction of daring record companies whose risk-taking was high andrewards were somewhat honorable, but that's another essay. That asidethis collection, 'The Complete B-Sides' doesn't do much more than itclaims, collecting all the singles tracks which didn't appear on thealbums, in chronological order from the start. Absent however are acouple lingering other tracks which appeared on compilations like'Rubyat' and 'I'm Your Fan: Songs of Leonard Cohen.' As a bonus acouple of their music videos are included - their breathrough hit,"Here Comes Your Man" and "Alison," which sadly enough omits the entirefirst part of the music video, "Dig for Fire." The commentary byCharlie Thompson (currently known as Frank Black, formerly known asBlack Francis) is short and direct, not surprisingly so as he's alwaysseemed to be more enthusiastic about current projects than reflectiveof his glory days in the Pixies.
samples:
- Heidi Berry - Little Fox
- Heidi Berry - Cradle
- Modern English - Gathering Dust
- Modern English - Swans on Glass
- Lush - Lovelife
- Lush - Nothing Natural
- Pixies - Theme From Narc
- Pixies - Into the White
While the Fat Cat people boast about their committment to introducingfresh new artists, they've played the game relatively safe for theirentire existence. A successful record label has to establish themselvespretty much before they can make bold moves like this one, releasing aCD comprised entirely of demos received by the label from completeunknowns. Fat Cat established themselves by releasing an assortment ofbuzzworthy 12" split singles, sneaking in a relatively unknown act onone side with an established act on the other side. In sales it'scalled the "foot in the door technique" — now that we've got yourattention, try this! The label's intentions are well and this techniquesure paid off. 
It isn't until the fifth track of 'Hoshi No Koe' that you hear musicstrongly resembling the majority of Nobukazu Takemura's previous work.In and of itself, this isn't such a bad thing. To continue to rely onthe same reverb-laden, scratched, looped, and manipulated CD soundswhich have come to be so closely associated with Takemura (as well ashis "Child's View" alias) would have been redundant, if still quitepleasant to listen to. With the release of the "Sign" 12-inch a fewmonths back, Takemura signaled a shift away from the avant-gardeindulgence of 15-minute tracks of skipping digital beats, and towardsan almost danceable mix of vocoder-enhanced vocals, 4/4 rhythms, andcatchy melodies - and which kept his trademark sound as coolornamentation to what was his most single-y track yet.
The Angels of Light are the current song writing device of Michael Gira of Young God Records. How I Loved You, follow-up to 1999's superb debut New Mother, commits to tape many of the songs from the now legendary first tour and others written since. It is a collection of love songs of sorts with references to various women and Gira's parents, whom grace the front and back cover of the digipack.
The debut full-length from Belgium's Scratch Pet Land resembles what anaudio Rorscharch Test might sound like. Fans of the quirky Sonig soundfrom groups like Vert, Mouse On Mars and Wang Inc. should be warnedthat the proverbial happy blippy sounds don't really jump in until thefourth track and don't stay very long as this German duo seems to havean amazingly short span of attention. Given the chance however, thisfull-length debut is quite pleasing, with creative crack addict-likemelodies and noisy audio scribbles. There are spots where the soundsappear to be strange mutated samples of kids hiccuping in a playground,short tunes of randomized aural splotches, or a musicallyimpressionistic walk across a stained glass carpet crunching betweenyour feet. When the melodies do arrive they stand as shining moments ofan almost Kraftwerkian tributary nature. Forty-two minutes of randomtest tones, pots, pans, circus animals, babies and flying saucer soundslater I'm left somewhat confused, but rather satisfied. 
Thomas Brinkmann is a prolific producer of numerous minimal/experimental techno platters, both digital and analogue. His tools here are simple but unique: a knife, a pile of old records, 2 turntables, a mixer, an isolator and an effects unit. If I'm to understand the process correctly, Brinkmann literally cut the locked grooves into the records and then played and mixed them to create the 10 4-7 minute, binary titled tracks.
Taking a break between albums, the Tied & Tickled Trio have released a brief 8-song collection of remixes from last year's "EA1 EA2" album. The disc is released through Morr Music in Germany and features remixes by Console, Kandis, Max.Ernst and others. For the most part the remixes basically go one of two ways. Some of the tracks are pumped up discotheque versions of the songs while others take a route accenting the more jazzy elements. The Max.Ernst cuts are quite watery with obnoxiously repetitious horn loops while the Console mix flows nicely with an element of technological mastery.
Console, a.k.a. Martin Gretchmann a.k.a. 'that guy in the Notwist who -isn't- in the Tied & Tickled Trio' has also released a disc of remixes, but this one's from the other side of the mixing board. 'Console Yourself' is eight tracks of other peoples songs remixed by Gretchmann, over the course of three years, including an overlap from the Tied & Tickled remix disc. Also featured on the disc are remixes of Isan, Barbara Morganstern, Ammer/Hage and even a Console song remixed by Console. Gretchmann's mixes stand out as he's got a keen ear for when to keep a loop going and when to kill it. While both of these discs are good to have for collectors, they're nowhere to start for people who aren't existing fans already. I personally recommend the most recent full-length albums from each of the three, Console's "Rocket in the Pocket", Tied & Tickled Trio's "EA1 EA2" and of course the Notwist's "Shrink." With any luck at least one of these entities will release something excellent later on this year.
Phill Niblock is a drone specialist. Everything he composes pursues the same drone idea but he varies the textures drastically by utilising different musical instruments. His pieces are supremely mind altering, and this release on the continually engaging and intriguing Touch art label is the most hallucinogenic dense and intense recording I've heard from him, or anyone else for that matter.
Ah, the obligatory 'best of' album! Chances are you've sampledsomething from, but perhaps not something from each era of, Pigface'sdecade deep oeuvre. The history of Pigface is inextricably tied todrummer / ringleader / Invisible Records head honcho Martin Atkins withsome 100+ members (as listed in the insert) having passed through therevolving door. The talent amassed on stage and in the studio isstaggering and includes most everyone in the rock and 'industrial' rockunderground. The musical result is varied and impossible to pigeonhole,taking in elements of punk, funk, noise, dance, etc. Disc 1 collects 20(!) re-edited, re-mastered tracks representing the 4 studio albums,emphasis on "Fook" and "Notes From the Underground", and a few of theremix/live EPs and albums. The editing merely tightens up everythingfor maximum disc capacity and the remastered sound is most clearlyevident on the most dated studio material, "Suck" and "Point Blank"from "Gub". It all sounds great and flows well through the years with afine track selection courtesy of fan submissions. Disc 2 is the realincentive for long time fans with 9 of the 15 tracks being previouslyunreleased nuggets: brief interviews (Atkins, Ogre, William Tucker),songs either aborted or in an infant form ("Dribble", parts of whichbecame "Empathy", "Taiko" which became "Asphole"), re-mixes (includingnew versions of "Chickasuarus" and "Hips, Tits, Lips, Power"), and anamusing radio ID. These include Dirk Flanigan, Astrid Welz, Jim Marcus,Andrew Weiss/Ween, Black Francis and Robert Santiago of The Pixies ...some accomplished pieces and others spontaneous, fun and loose jams."Preaching to the Perverted" does just that but does it with style. Anincarnation of Pigface will likely tour later this year. 
