I love it when compilations turn me on to good bands I haven’t heard of before. That is usually a crapshoot for most comps, but Accretions’ 25-year celebration set introduces me to more than one band I’ll be chasing down soon.
Of course, I had already known about guitar wizard Bill Horist and co-producer Hans Fjellestad, and their entries are two of the strongest in this box o’ dozen tunes. But let me tell you about some other great acts you ought to check out, unless you long beat me to them. With “the far seam,” Dawn of Midi gets as close pure, cool, space-age jazz as any of the wannabe cool bands who tried to get there. Damon Holzborn’s brittle, low buzz “Intro” shows him to be as capable a guitar experimenter as Horist, whose “The Psoriasis Coast” still gets my vote as the best track on the record. Also worth noting are Marcelo Radulovich and Nathan Hubbard, whose augmented solo drum outing “Echodoor” is one of the best (ie: least self-important and boring) drum solos ever; it is also one with a lot of soul. Radulovich offers whimsy and trembling in “Circumambulating,” a disjointed, Tom Wait’s-esque drunken surreal ballad. “Solo,” an appropriately titled track by Santiago Latorre – alone with his alto sax and electronics—is also memorable.
As far as label celebrations and compilations go, “25″ is right up there, both in consistency and in showing off the fruits of the label. Accretions ought to be proud and ought to be more noticed for the variety of styles and talents they nurture.
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