 Various Artists I must admit a simultaneous admiration and bemusement for the UK record industry. Seems like every time an old soul gem is used in a TV commercial or covered by a dancefloor act, the shelves are flooded with compilations the following week to put the original shit into the public's hands. Nowhere besides Tokyo, or maybe Starbucks, is music so momentarily trendy and so soon considered disposable. Record buying there is as seemling impulsive and lifestyle-driven as fast food is here … a beautiful thing, surely. The great benefit of this phenomenon is the ability to wander into a London record shop and see shelves crammed with yesterday's lifestyle compilation CDs, discounted to make room for whatever the new flavor is. You can buy all sorts of stuff that's passé there, come home, and suddenly be way ahead of the game. Make Music is above-average for this kind of release, seeming to exist mainly to get Minnie Riperton's ridiculously brilliant epic "Les Fleur" back into circulation following a splendid note-for-note cover by 4Hero, which struck a chord in the UK and of course is completely known in the States outside of hipster circles. "Les Fleur" is a slow, sure single, taking its time to arrive and finally declaring itself proudly before God and the heavens. It's sort of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by way of Godspell, and while it's not hard to see it as having been just over the heads of American record buyers, it's still amazing to think a song this eternal might ever have been neglected. The rest of the comp flows in a similarly mellow, acoustic groove, simmering confidently without having to blow your head off with some overly well-known single. Prime cuts include are Linda Lewis's "Reach For the Truth," which begins like a slinky soul number, morphs into early-70s Aretha gospel territory, and winds up in an Allman Brothers boogie; and Barbara & Ernie's minor-key "Play With Fire," which sounds like the Jefferson Airplane might have had they even peripherally known any black people. Bonnie Dobson's "Milk and Honey" sounds deliciously like Catherine O'Hara's character from A Mighty Wind produced by a very stoned Van Dyke Parks. Bill Withers's "You" is fantastic, one of his ballsier songs, and with that marvellous double-tracked vocal. Christine Perfect's pre-Fleetwood Mac "And That's Saying A Lot" is subtler than her later stuff, but not necessarily better – still, a nice long sip of cool iced tea compared to the flat Coca-Cola of, like, a Janis Joplin album. Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 provide a stripped-down "For What It's Worth," for what it's worth, and there's a requisite Shuggie Otis track ("Aht Uh Mi Hed," which sounds not unpleasantly like a Glenn Frey demo). Not everything is great (The Isley Brothers' "Work to Do" is typically derivative), but everything works together to sustain the same groovy mood, which is all that needed to happen in the first place. No need to overachieve on CDs that are basically sonic magazines, you know?
Review by Wimpsom Turl |