Isolationism [Virgin 1994]

In the end you always return to old love. I had an epiphany of sorts today when I refound this in my cd-collection. It is truly remarkable how many artist that I have come to appreciate and love over the last few years are on this double cd. Take a look at those credentials!

There is of course Aphex Twin (with 'Aphex Airlines', probably the most radically insane track he ever produced); Kevin Martin (now The Bug, back then Ice and Techno Animal); Jim O'Rourke (later of Gastr Del Sol and Sonic Youth, now one of the producers of Joanna Newsom's Ys); AMM (at the time with Keith Rowe, John Tilbury and Eddie Prevost); Keiji Haino (here in his Nijiumu-guise); Mick Harris (Scorn, Lull); KK Null; Matthew Bower (back then as Total, now Skullflower and Hototogisu); Thomas Köner; Justin Broadrick (here as Final, now frontman of Jesu); Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 (here as E.A.R. aka Experimental Audio Research, but Kevin Martin, Kevin 'MBV' Shields, Eddie Prevost and Andy Mellwig of Porter Ricks were members of E.A.R. too at one time or other); John Coxon of Spiritualized and Spring Heel Jack (here as Disco Inferno) and Raoul Björkenheim (who used to be in Phantom City, a group Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Lol Coxhill, Paul Schütze and Toshinori Kondo were all members of for some period of time). "Isolationism", quoi?

And then Seefeel, Labradford, David Toop & Max Eastley, Paul Schütze and my ever beloved :zoviet*france: are on there too.

Is this a dream line-up or what? The guy who did the A&M for this compilation deserves no less than a statue (it is Kevin Martin himself, by the way, but Alan Cummings and John Everall of The Wire had some input too, if I interpret correctly). And Tony Cousins, who in his lifetime has worked the sound of records as diverse as Scritti Politti's Cupid & Psyche and Robbie Williams' 'Groovebox' and laboured for labels like Real World and 4AD did the mastering.

I took a little peak on discogs and noticed that this compilation switches hands for at least thirty euro's. No wonder.

A little applause also to good ol' Theo for relating the apocalyptic atmosphere of Isolationism to the paranoia of dubstep. Clever guy he always will be.