Customer Reviews

Blech

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sheffield's Warp label, from its genesis as a sort of underground railroad for the most iconoclastic of electronic artists -- people like LFO, The Black Dog and Jimi Tenor -- to its current status as one of electronic music's most important and influential labels, boasting a stable of ur-weird genre-busters like Squarepusher, The Aphex Twin, Nightmares on Wax, Autechre and Boards of Canada, is well represented on this release. Both longstanding fans of the label and neophytes alike will find plenty to enjoy here; most all of the Warp roster, from the distinguished (Autechre, Plaid, Aphex Twin) to the obscure (Elektroids, DJ Mink) put in an appearance or two, and many of the selections are previously unreleased or long out of print. The songs are set in the mix by PC and Strictly, the Ninja Tune team who aided and abbetted Coldcut on 1995's seminal piece of turntable bricolage, '70 Minutes of Madness.' The Ninjas are in even finer form here, seamlessly blending the pitching static of Red Snapper's "The Last One" into Aphex Twin's plangently ambient "Saw II" without batting an eyelash. The result? A dense carpet of songs that clatter, beep and wheeze with a rhythm that's somehow both organic and disressingly not so. Always engaging, sometimes disturbing, 'Blech II' is both an apt rendering of one of electronic music's most interesting labels and a tribute to turntable mixology at its most deft.

This album grew on me in a hurry. I've experienced the evolution of electronica over the last 10 years, and this album puts older generations to shame. This is a classic that will live on. Check it out for yourself - you'll want to thank me later.

An impressive collection of tracks for Warp and Ninjatune fans alike. What you get with this CD is an extended DJ mix of fine tracks from the libraries of the two aforementioned labels. I should emphasize that you do not get full tracks. Its a good mix I suppose, but mostly I found that much of the Warp material wasn't well served by this format. Trying to fit tracks from "Tri Repetae" or "Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2" into a turntablist rave-up.... I just dunno. And as I bought this CD for the Warp material more than for the Ninjatune material, the result quite simply doesn't do it for me. That said, for new listeners to the Warp or Ninjatune sounds, this covers a lot of great territory on one small CD - and so in that sense, this is an excellent sampler.