various artists - The Meaning Of Within (Mojo's Guide To The Fab Avant-Garde)

The finest Mojo comps should do one of a few things:

1. They'll tie together the disparate threads of a band's catalog: spin off's, influences, predecessors, and the influenced alike;
2. They'll snapshot a time or space: Manchester in the late 70s, the early days of Glastonbury, the blues revival ahead of the rise of Beat;
3. They'll curate an artist's taste. This is one of my favorites, even when the artist is someone I couldn't give a shit about, because seeing someone connect the Specials/Buzzcocks/Joe Meek/et al to their art is a sure-fire way for me to give them another sniff; or,
4. They'll open a doorway into a subject one might have never delved into.

This 13-track collection, cover dated September 2022, is a pitch-perfect example of number 4. Where does one even establish the boundaries of what the avant garde is/was without a guide like this? You can stumble across a Byron Gysin because you read Burroughs in high school; you can watch Ravi Shankar deliver another groovy raga on the "Krusty The Klown" show; you can jump from Refused to Ornette Coleman on the basis of inspiring record titles. But it's all tripping dick first throughout life without the context that something like this compilation provides.

Discogs

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