Crate diggers can be like rapacious strip miners. They come to a musical territory, mine it, pillage it, then move on to the next. Mirroring the most destructive impulses of capitalism, everything is up for grabs, and the competition for the freshest old records is high. Fortunately we’ve moved on from the days when DJ Shadow and Keb Darge dared to put out a wide release compilation of obscure funk and soul with no tracklistings – just to put off their competition (and annoy listeners). However post-Internet abundance these sort of maneuvers are pointless, over time the hive mind of the Internet will have produced a full tracklisting not to mention a complete list of all known works that sample the aforementioned tracks.
One happy outcome of this is the explosion of excellent super niche collections – entry points to undiscovered worlds of sound.
Andy Votel and Don Thomas’s Finders Keepers and Delay 68 labels have been reissuing some amazing music from the late 60s and 70s both as long form artist albums and on a series of great compilations and B-Music Cross Continental Record Raid Road Trip pulls together a selection of oddities from their irregular B-Music club night. Roping in a bunch of fellow crate diggers including Bob Stanley (St Etienne), Cherrystones, David Holmes, and Gruff Ryhs (Super FUrry Animals) and Doug Shipton. Angentinian psych rock, Morrocan funk, Czech and French pop, weird electronics, Italian soundtrack jazz, Welsh glam rock – there’s some pretty wild music here, much of which has an interest beyond just being prime sampling material (which is a common failing of other crate digger compilations). With liner notes explaining the origins and background of the included tracks, there is a lot to explore and look out for when you are next browsing second hand shops and thrift stores. Excellent.
Oh No is Madlib’s brother which I imagine must bring a burdensome degree of ‘expectation’ as a producer. Here on Dr No’s Oxperiment he raids Turkish, Greek, Italian and Moroccan psych rock, folk and jazz form the 60s and 70s. Where the mainstream productions of hip hop producers have been mining Middle Eastern and Mediterranean sample sources since the late 90s, Oh No’s sample experiments are much more reverential – the opener takes large chunks of Turkish singer Selda whose work was recently reissued by Votel for Finders Keepers. Over the 28 short tracks (none is over 2 minutes), Oh No basically makes a very engaging mixtape with plenty of variety and beats. What troubles me though is the way it operates as a closed circuit – lacking any sort of liner notes and listing of sample sources there are no exit trajectories for listeners to explore. If you didn’t know it was Selda on the first track there is no way of finding out. I know that’s part of the ‘mystery’ of beat making, and one of the persistent traits of hip hop productions – partly a result of legalities, and part the result of a manufactured dog-eat-dog competitive culture – but it does a great disservice not only to the listener, but also to those whose work is being used here. This qualm aside, it is still a great ride. Now, I’m just waiting for the hive mind to pull it apart and build a complete listing of sample sources . . .
