As I mentioned up top, a fairly big haul this time, a few records I've been eyeing up for a while, one of which I think may pan out into a Retro Review down the line. There were some last minute additions as well in the form of two more compilations from Touched Music, the charity label I've talked about before. I scooped their absolutely massive second entry Touched Two some months back and I've still yet to full digest the depths of it's 255 tracks. I've had a few more in my wish-list since then, including the Found Sound series, a much more 'IDM' focused set of compilations from what I'd read. The label mentioned via email that for a limited time the two of them would be 'pay what you want' as they also announced an upcoming third entry in the series too, so at the very last minute I gave both of them a spin and added them to my cart.
Much easier to get into than the big 255 tracker one, the two Found Sounds clock in at a much more readable 59 tracks. It's early doors yet so I don't have any absolute favourites to report back with as of yet, but there are plenty of contenders. From volume one I've chosen Fxmas mod DAISY CHAIN 25o [brkn rotary hesitant snr] which sounds like some of the names I give my project files. It's a playful little number that evokes that Aphex Twin vibe circa Richard D. James Album. It's been quite a while since I delved into the 'fun' side of the IDM world, my favourites tend to be a little more cold and technical feeling, so having this one come on was very refreshing indeed.
From the second entry we have something more in line with what I just mentioned, as the title Beta might give away. It's perhaps a little generic if you're fully immersed in the world of IDM, especially as the original release this track appeared on is from 1999, but it's a style of sound that I have a lot of love for. It's been quite a long time since I really sought out anything that sounds like this so I will admit some bias there as well! I just can't help but love that really specific brand of hi-tech sounds like this that was coming out around the late 90's to early 00's, which makes sense as my last real deep dive into this sound was a combination of releases on Toytronic and early net-label pioneers Monotonik. That's part of the appeal of the Touched releases for me actually, you get a whole heap of new names to check out if you dig their stuff.
One last track to round things off, I had the lone Reporter EP I talked about a while back come on - Seasonal Rhythms - which spurred me on to get some more. It's a very pretty release and I'd plain forgotten to wish-list some other Reporter releases so it served as a good reminder. I settled on the Guggenheim EP, originally released as a CDr in 2004. I must say the updated artwork is much nicer and very much suits the slick electronics contained. Each track named for a location, they really could all go here quite comfortably. I've chosen Vegas this time around - by far the darkest sounding of the bunch, it's much closer to that cold and artificial feeling I described really enjoying a few paragraphs back. Not sure it's my favourite of the lot, but you can certainly expect to see not only more of this EP, but more Reporter in general in the posts to come.
And that'll be all for today, I know I said up top I'd left it a little longer than I'd like between posts but that might not be as bad as I made out, this post felt really speedy to write! That might be due to the sheer amount of new music I got recently though come to think of it, but maybe an extra day or two isn't so bad. At any rate, I'll be back soon enough with more - a full writeup of the rest of my Friday scoops coming up next with some more from the releases mentioned here and some others that I haven't brought up as of yet. There's some public transport carnage in my neck of the woods this coming week so no doubt I'll find some time to sit and do a full writeup. Until then, as always: stay safe and enjoy the music.
-CVF
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