various artists
tell-all records vol. 1 • tell-all records • 2004
Tell-All Records is a new label out of San Francisco and it seems their mission is to put out recordings by artists specializing in drone, slowcore, and experimental "post-rock" compositions. This is their first release, a label sampler with 12 tracks by 9 different artists.
The lead-off is from
Liam Singer, who contributes 2 tracks from his piano-based album (
see review).
Peter Surla's track is a spacey guitar instrumental. Next is
28 Degrees Taurus, who provide 2 tracks of whispery slowcore. The track from
St. Rosa is experimental piano and droning feedback with quivery vocals and found sounds.
One Umbrella is similar to St. Rosa, but noisier and more discordant, like the soundtrack to a pretentious art film. Their 2 songs include the final track, which is basically a 15-minute feedback drone.
Dave Zohrob provides another contemplative instrumental slowcore guitar track, this time with tremolo.
Kallikak Family's track is comprised of layered & sampled vocal harmonic loops with glitchy digital beats and dorky Casio sounds, like a Brian Eno ambient track gone awry. This is followed by
Keith Negley, who performs quiet, digitally futzed-with acoustic folk a la The Notwist or Hood. The least-experimental artist on this compilation is
Carrier (recently renamed Golden Birds), an acoustic singer-songwriter with good vocals and lyrics.
Unfortunately I'm not enamored of many of the tracks on this compilation. I did enjoy a handful, and I'm all for experimentation, but some of this gravitates toward the willfully obscurantist, and most of the songs were not very interesting and/or accessible to me. (mike.03.05)
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