VARIOUS ARTISTSFresh Fruit Record label: Lo Recordings Format: CD Release date: October 2000 If I told you that you could get an import label sampler for the price of a domestic CD single, would it encourage a road trip towards the more adventurous side of music? Albeit with a questionable catch: low quality for a low price. (Hey, everybody needs a gimmick.) Next stop: Lo Recordings, a mostly experimental electronic label where the beautiful and the ugly tend to run in the same circles and the usually danceable jams trip over their own feet. Glitch boy of the year Kid 606 contributes a recording that desperately wants to be ambient, but his equipment was malfunctioning that day. detached d'n'b producer Hrvatski turns in another fine mess of a tune. and as a switch, it's the "normal" tracks that break up the insanity this time around, not vice versa. Max Tundra, an artist known for throwing a sonic curveball or two, digs deep into his archives for some handbag house circa 1993. And there are some electronic/acoustic hybrids on the comp, too: listeners with a soft spot for pretty/jangly guitars will appreciate the works of Cursor Miner, Santa Dog, and ST. Other artists include Ceephax (Squarepusher's brother), Richard Thomas, They Came From The Stars, Hairy Butter, and a bunch of others you've probably never heard of. But at seven bucks for 72 minutes of music, it is well worth the dough to jump in with both feet. {macedonia}
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