Sometimes you are pointed to some projects and when reading the information you can’t really believe it. This happened to me when getting information about the compilation The noise and the city on the French netlabel Autres Directions.
The list of artists is impressive(Mitchell Akiyama, Amute, Greg Davis, Pan American and many many more) and the project(to record sounds from your daily surroundings and make a track out of it) sounds nice.
So what do you get? First of all one very big download. Over 200MB of files (artwork and high quality mp3’s) But when you’re done you have 30 tracks, cd artwork, a booklet, and many cards that hold a picture for each track and a bit of text written by the artist. It all looks impressive and there is lots of information for the listener to enjoy.
And then the music. 30 tracks, 30 artists, so it goes without saying that none can like all tracks on this compilation. But the overall quality is very high. Ranging from more traditional songs, to manipulated field recordings. It’s a pleasure to hear the tracks, hear the different moods, and be surprised by a few of the new names I never heard of.
But there are a few buts when it comes to this release. Although each track is recorded in a different city, and many in a different country, it is sometimes hard to hear the mood changing. Some of the tracks simply are too much alike. This of course is not a shame, but sometimes I could wish for a bit more variation. But my biggest problem is simple: why on mp3? You can get the cd-r version of this with printed booklet, covers etc. But this type of release simply deserves a cd/vinyl release in my opinion. The quality is high, the quantity is enormous, the information is plentyful.
This surely is a wonderful compilation that offers quality together with quantity, something that is too often not the case. It’s only a shame this is not released on cd/vinyl. This might limit the reach of this release a bit. But now go to the website and download this. It’s worth every single bit of your bandwidth. And if you are not able to download it, write the label and ask if they can send you the cd-r version.
– download
