The collaborations between locals like dilly dilly and Moshe, or A-Frame and Mike Clouds, are cool and all, but I found myself gravitating to the farthest-flung, the most exotic. What brings Brazilian Marcelo Martins to lead “4th Dimension Contact” with something that sounds like a sitar? In what language are those distorted samples that cut through the feedback peals and caustic, industrial beats? Is that an opera singer or a synthesizer employed by France’s Roma on “Snorkeling”?
And to think about how similar nascent local duo One Distant Moment sound to Germany’s Ira Atari & Desad, both drawing on Portishead and Massive Attack (both Bristol, England, natives) to surround ethereal female vocals with moody abrasiveness. Where once geographic locality spawned like-sounding music, it’s now simply ’net locality, frequenting the same sites or trading beats with the same distant digital personas.
That same ’net increases the likelihood a compilation like this works, too. If you like an artist, MySpace or lala.com or last.fm are only a click away, where you can instantly explore the work of a musician you’ve taken a liking to. And send that musician an e-mail if you want. Or make and send a beat you think she might like. Or, you know, buy something.
It’s a platform that talented individuals can use to further their goals, and, as curator, Moshe has done well to make sure that platform is steady and stable, with a quality control that’s impressive for such a large release. There’s no filler here. The mastering and mixing provide a consistent product. Everything is at least interesting.
Considering the current flight path of ambition and work ethic, I expect next year’s volume 4 to be four albums, well over 50 songs, and of similar quality. This series has established itself as an important one to watch, both here in Portland and around the world.
Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com
