Glasvocht Records

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V/A - WE’RE FOR THE UNKNOWN, UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED
cd - Glasvocht Records / Nosordo, 2005
http://www.glasvochtrecords.com
http://www.nosordo.com

Glasvocht labelbaas Filip Gheysen heeft met We’re for the Unknown, Unbought and Unbossed een bijzonder mooie compilatie samengesteld. Zoals de titel al aangeeft speelden commerciële belangen in de samenstelling van dit album totaal geen rol, het doet meer denken aan mixtapes die je vroeger met veel zorg samenstelde voor vrienden. Het is duidelijk dat Gheysen bijzonder veel werk gestoken heeft in de keuze en volgorde van de nummers: alles loopt mooi in elkaar over en dat maakt dat deze compilatie een verrassend hoge coherentie vertoont die laveert tussen de twee uitersten van vredige dagdroom en koortsige nachtmerrie. Aan de ene kant heb je de subtiele melancholische elektronica van Ljndbilden & Piloten, Do en Mapstation. Aan de andere kant de horror en tegen de noise aanleunende bijdragen van Massaccesi, The Idealist en The Cheese. Daartussen een breed open veld waarin het experiment niet geschuwd wordt. Dijf Sanders, Osso Bucco, Douglas Ferguson en Seth Warren & David Dupuis spelen elk op hun eigen manier met de mogelijkheden van de elektronica. Gheysen’s eigen The Ordinary Seaman brengt lofi gitaarmuziek met een hoek af en de uit Noorwegen afkomstige Det Svenska Folket brengen een mix van folk en elektronica. Andere hoogtepunten zijn Mnemosyne, een Canadese band samengesteld rond gitarist Aidan Baker, en Ved, waarbij het album langzaam uitdooft in een oneindige viooldrone.

Semtex
Glasvocht and Nosordo are two fairly young record labels that seemingly don't care about what's hot and what's not. They share a love for the capricious and this brand new compilation clearly shows they have an eye for good but unknown artists. We're For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed is a perfect title for this album as I only knew a handful of the featured artists by name. The quality of the collected material is surprisingly high though.

Making compilations is a tough business, but Glasvocht and Nosordo did it well. The bands and artists on We're For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed sound very diverse at moments, but connected in a very distinct way. The record labels introduce us to some of the bands on their roster, but release a compilation that's going way beyond the superficiality of a promotional label sampler.

It's awesome to see how very contrasting songs by different composers still harmonize well when put together on a compilation. Maybe it's the lack of any singing on all these tracks that make them feel like they're connected. Anyhow, whether the artists use keyboards, electronics, rainy field recordings or the more common instrumentation, their songs mostly bathe in a beautiful melancholic shadow. Complex sounds and detailed but fragile electronics by Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do and Mapstation contrast highly with the hard enervating cold sounds of The Idealist (you might remember Joachim Nordwall of the now defunct trio Kid Commando) or the pumping breakbeats of Fractional or Yasushi Miura. In between there's time for the spaced out noise of Douglas Ferguson or Ved, that explores sounds and concepts. Then there's the more conventional noiserock of a band like The Ordinary Seaman, and the wave discopunk of The Cheese.

This is a compilation that carries some really good music by unknown independent bands or individuals from all over the world. I'll definitely remember Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do, Mapstation, The Idealist and Det Svenska Folket, they're the ones that stand out in my opinion. Indietronica, soundscapes, noise, postpunk and breakbeats, it's all on here… Highly varied and experimental but, apart from some boring interludes, mostly of an overall high quality.

I want to say that I love this compilation. I knew I would like at least some of it, considering albums released by Nosordo regularly have the honor of being kept on my desk so I can reach them easily, and I was curious about Glasvocht as well.

In truth, I did like it...until I got to the 5th track. The first four were smooth, intricate, and interesting offerings from Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do, Mapstation, and Dijf Sanders, but when the song by The Cheese started, I had to check to see if I had the right CD. With lyrics (which the others lacked) that were fuzzy and poorly recorded, and an actual band to back it up rather than the distortions and layers of both organic and computerized sounds like all of the others, it left me a little confused as to why it was included. On another compilation, I would probably have loved it.
The next song I had to stop at (or, actually, to stop) was Douglas Ferguson's "Dawning." It pans from left to right and back again so continuously, it was giving me a headache. Like trying to swim underwater at the beach without any sense of which way is up, it made me feel like I was being tossed helplessly back and forth. The song itself was not so bad, but the production was distracting and left me a little seasick.
And finally, along the same peculiar lines as The Cheese' song, The Ordinary Seamen didn't belong either. I thought including The Cheese might have been a joke until I reached The Ordinary Seamen. Unlike The Cheese, though, I would not have loved this song on another compilation. I would expect this kind of singing from someone in their bedroom, not from a label that I love and the label they chose to partner with.
But it isn't fair of me to only talk about the bad music on this compilation, since I disliked only 3 of the 16 songs. I only started there because the 13 other delicious songs are so difficult to describe in a way that I feel does them justice. Plus, it is hard to pick out favorites because they are so good. If it were just those 13, this compilation would have gotten ten out of ten.
Mapstation's "For Malmö" sounds like an updated Tetrus song, pleasantly bloopy and just fast enough to be upbeat; I can see the colored blocks falling in my head. Osso Bucco's delay action in the beginning of "Three Days They Slept" is like pulling up the blankets to make a little fort with your lover while the sunlight shines through, while the rest of the song is the nostalgia you feel for that moment when you think about it many years later. The fractured and twisted recordings of "Fraying Rain No Sleep" by Seth Warren and David Dupuis is like waking up in a strange city where you don't speak the language when you've just had a particularly disconcerting dream. And Yasushi Miura's dizzying "sounds.visual" reminds me equally of being on drugs and playing race car video games, though not both at the same time.
I guess it would finally be fair for me to say I loved this compilation. It is easy enough to skip over the ones that grate my nerves, and the rest are a big bandaid for that little papercut. 8/10

Vital Weekly
WE'RE FOR THE UNKNOWN, UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED (CD compilation by Glasvocht) The small Belgium label Glasvocht brought us Teledroom before, a surprising nice CD with a mixture of electronics and guitar oriented singer-songwriter stuff, and with the release of 'We're For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed', they have found a whole bunch of likeminded artists. Sometimes things move towards the singer-songwriter stuff, although it must be noted that there is hardly any singing going on. Tinkling guitars, scratchy laptop sounds, melancholic atmospheres, such as in the pieces by Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do and Mapstation - all of which are convientely placed at the beginning of the CD. At the other side of the spectrum we find the hard banging, almost industrialized beats of The Idealist or the likewise hard breakcore of Fractional. In between the slightly more experimental music of Osso Bucco, Douglas Ferguson, Dijf Sanders, the ambient doodlings of Mnemosyne (with Aidan Baker on guitar) and Det Svenska Folket. Slightly normal guitar music by The Cheese and The Ordinary Seaman (with Glasvocht's headhoncho Philip Gheysen on vocals, guitars and electronics). A surprising varied compilation of all sorts of alternative music, mostly by acts which I never heard of, but with an overall high quality. Alternative popmusic for the better kind. (FdW) Address: http://www.glasvochtrecords.com

Reviews "We're For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed"