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Various Artists
2008 Sampler

Projekt Records

Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

As is something of a tradition for the prominent darkwave label, Projekt releases a new sampler every year to introduce listeners to the new sounds their sometimes eccentric roster of artists have to offer. For this 2008 sampler, we are treated to appearances by some not-so-familiar faces beginning with the psychedelic shoegazer-inspired tones of Tearwave and their haunting "Read Me," in which vocals flutter and float above shimmering guitars and shifting rhythms. Autumn's Grey Solace follows with "Tusk," recalling the best elements of Love Spirals Downward or The Cocteau Twins with crystalline strumming guitars, a steady beat, and melodies that drift between dreaminess and despair. Vocal harmonies and a minimal contingent of piano and flute abound in "Aubade" by Mirabilis, making for one heavenly track, while Arcana's "Lost in Time" dances darkly through the speakers with a crescendo of melancholy vocals, restrained tribal percussion, and medieval wisps of synthesized ambience. "Into Nothing" quiets things down slightly with subdued organs, gentle acoustic guitar, and a tantalizing Nick Cave-ish vocal, and Revue Noir's Weimar Republic brand of vaudevillian bleakness and whimsy is quite a treat with "Sometimes, Sunshine." In light of this track, Voltaire's take on a similar style - albeit with a much more pronounced sense of humor - doesn't quite measure up, although "Zombie Prostitute" does at least pick up the speed of the record enough to get people dancing if only for a moment, and while Alio Die and Martina Galvagni's "A Drone Song for Alienor" is presented here as an excerpt, it is still 10 minutes of nocturnal ambient melody that is sweet if somewhat directionless. Steve Roach also gives us an excerpt from his "Arc of Passion," but unlike the previous track, Roach's 10 minutes are a muted array of trancelike synths and quiet atmospheres that threaten to build to a marvelous explosion of sound and melody, but never do in this fragment. Chandeen bring us back to more familiar territory in "From the Inside" with morose melodies soaring over an array of electronic atmospheres, with a slight acoustic guitar making itself known in the choruses, while "Notti Bianche" by All My Faith Lost... is much sadder in tone and more classical in its instrumentation, leaving an edit of Attrition's "Rock of Ages" to close us out with an abstract arrangement of operatic vocals, deep rumbling ambience, and shrill violins. The Projekt 2008 Sampler turns out to be rather par for the course, with many of the acts presented employing similar modes and motifs characteristic to Projekt's output thus far, but then again... isn't that what people have come to know and love about Projekt anyway?