CD Reviews

Various Artists | Money Will Ruin Everything

Rune Grammofon (2009)

By DEVIN KING | February 3, 2009

3.0 Stars

Asked to describe his label Rune Grammofon's output, Rune Kristoffersen uncomfortably offers, "It's typically somewhere between improvised, electronic, contemporary . . . ," before fading off. Yet that description suits this double-disc best-of/artist's book that celebrates 10 years of the label. The roster on the CDs — Susanna, Humcrush, Scorch Trio, Deathprod, Supersilent, and more — is a perfect representation of the label.

The book, designed by RG's album-sleeve designer, Kim Hiorthøy, is part scrapbook, part visual essay — pics of artists and mark-ups of the work that goes into each record cover are interspersed with photos of lamps, books, houses, and trees that suggest how Hiorthøy has created a visual identity for each album and, collectively, for the label.

There are also essays by heavy-hitters David Fricke (Rolling Stone) and Rob Young (The Wire). Kristoffersen frames the book as a reaction against file sharing — "Try and download this!" It's easy to enjoy the downfall of the RIAA, but if a label with this type of progressive output is having trouble, you wonder whether all that torrenting was worth it.

Related: Review: Humcrush | Rest at World's End, This old house, Lows and highs, More

Review: Humcrush | Rest at World's End
Replete with bands who weave jazz, modern composition, and electronic music, the Rune Grammofon label captures a thriving scene of Norwegian improvisers and composers.
This old house
You wouldn't know it, but throbbing away in the upper two floors of that tiny wedge of a building splitting Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue is Rise: Boston's only after-hours nightclub.
Lows and highs
Although he lives in suburban DC — a few thousand miles and an ocean away from dubstep ground zero in London — producer Martijn Deykers (a/k/a MARTYN) was one of the genre's pivotal figures of 2008.
Four Tet | There Is Love In You
In the five years since Kieran Hebden a/k/a Four Tet last dropped a full-length, the playing field has been seriously leveled for sample-based electronic music.
Various artists | Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal, and Deep Jazz from the Underground, 1968-1977
Apple-pie Mormon missionaries the Millers travel through Iran to spread the gospel of Joseph Smith among Muslims and Zoroastrians, and their kid discovers the glorious sound of the santur.
Taking the B-boys to School
You may have noticed, hip-hop dance has gone legit — or at least slightly commercial.
Slideshow: Breakonomics 2009 at MIT
Breakers, popper, and housers get on the good foot at MIT's student center
Various Artists | A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island
Artist, graphic designer, and toy creator Pete Fowler has been instrumental in the rebranding operation the Super Furry Animals have effected on their homeland of Wales.
The other river rave
When heads deserted the Chinatown-warehouse rave scene in the late '90s, the house loyalists from Soul Clap and Marz Entertainment were still cracking glow sticks.
Hot Chip | One Life Stand
Four albums into a career that appeared to begin as an art-school goof, Hot Chip look more likely than any of their peers to ascend one day to the intellectual electro-pop heights of Pet Shop Boys or Scritti Politti.
Dance, dance, evolution
They've been working together for a long time, since the late 1990s in Florida and the nascent Slowing Room, which came to Maine to become early innovators of the Portland electronic music scene.
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Topics: CD Reviews , Electronic Music, David Fricke, RIAA, More

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