Various Artists – Toothpaste For Your Elephant

Putting together a coherent compilation across diverse styles is no easy task. The London label Ó Mhaidin manages it straight away with catalogue number 01. Toothpaste For Your Elephant is a sampler stocked with 16 pieces. There is experimental Americana, dub, drone, boogie, indie, psychedelia, psych-folk, a little punk with »post« in front of it.

The artists come from everywhere. Contemporary, long-standing. New recordings. Songs from the archive. Berlin no-age band Kulku sound like early Pere Ubu. The Seattle trio Idol Ko Si bring weathered dub with echo-slow-motion punk vocals. Lancashire-based instrument maker and musician Thorn Wych hypnotises with trippy tribal folk à la Brigitte Fontaine. London solo artist Satan Club enchants on guitar with instrumental folk, while the likewise London-based lo-fi rock band C Turtle recall Pavement without vocals. Diverse styles, playfully condensed. In terms of sequencing and atmospheric consistency, the result is a never too intrusive yet always urgent arc of tension that quickly turns into a loop.