today has been a wierd day, following the enjoyable myspace trawl yesterday, i found myself in the archives digging out the big stick cd single (stay tuned).

and, as is the way when faced with a crate stuffed with cds from years gone by, it’s easy to become distracted and end up wasting literally hours trying to figure out if the album by xcnn is worth carting off to the stereo and try it out one more time (answer : no). anyway, having the new album by solo andata (??) in the pile made me remember that i have hidden away 2 compilations by the chicago based hefty records label.

oh, so now that my one occurance of visiting chicago happened back in may 2006, do i find out about the impressive electronic scene.

typical.

so, hefty records are not only celebrating 10 years in existence, but the small matter that, for all the gorgeous packaging, and beautiful noises held within the double cd set are 20 tracks by all manner of new names to ireallylovemusic.

in fact, bar one or 2 exceptions, i have no idea as to any of this stuff.

which is a dreadful shame, as the music across the discs is exactly what the doctor has ordered, especially if you like your music in cut-n-laptop spliced prefuse 73 style.

despite being a compilation, disc one of history is bunk (collaborations, reinterpretations and new compositions) is a consistent slice of remixed and revised updates of the labels electronic music. sublime atmospheres, delicate laptop glitchiness, and off the wall beauty from folks such as telefon tel aviv (ryuichi sakamoto remix!), victor bermon, chris case, and the very special hefty naked ninja remix track by eliot lipp.

the second disc features new music from the catalogue, and for all the weirdness, its never too long before you are treated to something very special. none more so than on opener absentminded by spanova, which is like some old school slice of sunrise ibizia bliss with subtle twitchy twists and turns to keep the eyelids from dropping. from this highlight things go all over the place, plus device dug into the old sound libraries and do their 80s electro pop funk thing for compose the beat, hoping for a future madonna remix perhaps, headphone freakiness of the treated piano and glockenspiel atmospherics by chris case

i suspect that this a good chunk of this would be a perfect release for readers of the wire, but alongside the sometime awkward machine based experimentation, are some wonderfully original tracks that make you want to find out more, which is what a good label sampler is all about really.

say, rather than read this, check some of this stuff out for yourself, the website has tracks streamed and a lot more besides.