various artists - Round One: Rawkus vs. Astralwerks (Mixed by Q-Burns Abstract Message)

I have a special place in my heart for samplers like these. Most of them aren't nearly this good, nor are they constructed so well. The selections come from contemporary releases from Astralwerks and Rawkus, who both were on fire in 2001. The weak spot is Q-Burns Abstract Message, and his contribution isn't really bad at all. His mix isn't really more noticeable than beat matching and letting a sextet of big beat, house, and hip hop do its thing. If nothing else, this is a great excuse to really dig into the Rawkus catalog. Association with the Murdoch family aside, they put out some all-timers back in the aughts. I really should pull that Pharoahe Monch debut LP out and give it another spin.

Anyways, thanks POWERade for your off-brand rehydrating drink and Cornerstone for putting together the sampler. AND the digital camera you sent me in early 2002 for doing street team stuff in Baltimore. Love, me.

Discogs

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various artists - Astralwerks SXSW New Music 2006

From the "Holy Shit, It's Been 20 Years!" Files: this sampler.

This one came from the missus's collection, which I would say runs both less esoteric and more eclectic than my own. For one, even 20 years ago when it was still primarily a place for indie rock bands to play 6 shows in the course of 4 days, you wouldn't have caught me down in Austin for SXSW. I was always happy for friends who got a bunch of slots down there, and a good opportunity to tour to and from. But it felt like a combination of too much money, too many bands, too many drugs, and not enough sleep, even in my twenties when all that's supposed to be what you're living for.

The contrivance part of Astralwerks was really no longer present by the time they put this out in 2006. It was no longer only the place where EMI would collect and license a bunch of European electronic music makers to help them grow. The success of Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers led to more breakouts from the likes of Sia and Hot Chip. It also served as the American home for Beth Orton and Placebo. Dance punk adjacent artists like the Juan MacLean and VHS Or Beta put out records along with soul survivor Candi Staton. It was still a home for dance music, but this sampler is a reminder that it was a much larger tent by 2006.

Does it hold up well, 20 years past? In a few instances, yeah, the song and artist is timeless. I'm going to think of Christopher Walken every time I hear "Weapon Of Choice" and it's going to make me smile. Hot Chip sounds like the future, just like they did on the "Over & Over" 12" that DFA put out in '05. Likewise for the Juan MacLean, whose eponymous leader also recorded for DFA before putting out their first full-length in the States on Astralwerks.

2006 was my first year of marriage, my first year out of college, my first year working under my abilities at as "straight" a job as I could stomach. It was the end of youth, the beginning of respectability...or so I thought. As it turns out, it was the first major detour in an adulthood full of them, and this sampler, just out of the mainstream of the times, is as good a soundtrack to remember those times as anything.

Discogs

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various artists - Bloodclot

I have no clue how I ended up with this compilation.

Was it the name? Did I misidentify this as a mid-70s roots reggae comp? Or a tribute to Cro Mags' vocalist John Joseph? The cover is giving me mid-90s SoCal punk graphic design. The cover photo reminds me of the kind I'd have taken outside a showspace I went to in Baltimore back around this time. Maybe that's it...maybe, whenever I nabbed this one, I took a wag because maybe I thought it had some deepish cut Orange County tracks, the kind that I've been enjoying digging because I couldn't bother listening to it when it was new.

This is not that. This has two of the most ubiquitous songs of 1998 on it, with "The Rockefeller Skank" and "One Week" both popping up on the front end of this HITS radio sampler. The selections from K's Choice and Spacehog are not the songs that played everywhere. I didn't own either of these records, so it was interesting hearing what their respective labels were positioning as singles. Truth be told: the most interesting songs come on the back half of the CD, with Rufus Wainwright, Emm Gryner, and Dimitri From Paris all making appearances. It's capped off with that one MxPx song that I remember the video from, a pretty solid pop punk track from a band that hailed a ferry ride away from my current home base.

Discogs

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various artists - Good Vibrations: A Record Shop, A Label, A Film Soundtrack

It's a quiet Sunday, the first weekend of April, here in the PNW, a bit rainy and grey. A wonderful day for laundry, the Criterion Channel, and a bit of light blogging. We're back in the saddle again, picking up where we left off with this, the soundtrack to a documentary about one of the all-time great shops/labels/institutions, Belfast's Good Vibrations. And while I've not seen the doc, this is one I couldn't leave behind on the Central Coast last winter when it crossed my path at $7.

Is it nitpicky to ask why Protex isn't here? Yeah, it is, but "Don't Ring Me Up" was G.V.'s sixth release. Its absence seems a bit pointed. But I can't find any fault with what was compiled here. A mix of Good Vibrations releases ("Teenage Kicks", "Big Time", "Just Another Teenage Rebel"), inspirations (Bert Jansch, Bowie, Niney The Observer, the Shangri-Las), and contemporaries (S.L.F., the Saints, Suicide) make for a really great record of what made the shop so special in its relatively short life.

Discogs

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