Various artists

Category: Compilations
Album: Melodies & Structures Vol. 2

Melodies & Structures is a compilation CD from a small Canadian label called 4mg that focuses on recognition for DIY electronic artists that would not normally see the light of day, musically, without some help on their way up. With only 1,000 copies in circulation, this is more of a labor of love than your typical music compilation CD.

Given that, how does the actual music fare? Well, some of it manages to be marginally interesting, while others fail to be more than the typical club fare.

While most of the tracks linger around the ghostly and ethereal typically trancey club numbers with angelic choruses of real or sythesized female vocals or experimental noodling, others strike out towards more interesting, less repetitive fare… Some are a bit confusing, like Promilla’s “Ancient Love”, which sounds like the latest Madonna track that would surely be carpet-bombed on radio and video television. Meanwhile, others slip away from the typicality of club music with sample-heaviness, such as The Weathermen’s “Daytime TV (The Afternoon Mix)”, which verges on the edge of good taste with overuse of George W. samples, and Adam X, which delivers a strong retro feeling that reminds the listener of some current club remix of a Clock DVA song, late-80’s industrial gone club-hoppin’.

Hypnotech 3 delivers what they call “melodic, ambient pulsebeat,” which I could better describe as music that could have been culled from the Nintendo days, brought back with a dance edge, echoed also in the music of Charon. Others, like Northern Electric, deliver straight-up 80’s new wave/synthpop with no bones about it, while Click Click hides theirs under a veneer of Talking Heads fed through electronics.

All in all, a compilation and label worth looking into for the electro enthusiast who doesn’t mind a little experimental trance mixed in with their retro 80’s goodness. But, for the more casual listener or genre whore, probably not quite your forte.

 

from ReGen Magazine (~10/2004)