Various Artists

A short illness from which he never recovered

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Boomkat Product Review:

Blackest Ever Black draw a line under their tenure as preeminent label of the decade with a typically affective compilation that perversely introduces new acts to their fold(ing).

Not to overstate it, but for many avowed fans it’s possible to measure a block of our lives by BEB’s existence. When they first emerged with Raime’s stark debut, they were a breath of dank but necessary air to the British music scene. Staunch in their tastes but also wide open with it, they continued to draw a jagged line around the music that they loved, and a ruck of disparate loners, ravers and weirdos were more than happy to follow their lead between mutant forms of UK dance musick, eldritch psychedelia, smoky French avant-garde, incredible mixtapes, and indie-pop also-rans rewarded with a necessary 2nd wind. They left us with a bold yet sensitive and singular catalogue that precipitated all sorts of salty fluids from their legion followers, and will go down as one of the definitive labels of the 2010’s.

Rounding up 10 ghostly vignettes ranging from funereal pop to liminal ambient ’A short illness from which he never recovered’ sees the label off in a poetic fashion that has served them beautifully well thus far. Carla Dal Forno’s gently fevered dirge ‘Blue Morning’ (a cover of ‘The Kiwi Animal’ by Julie Cooper) is an obvious highlight, as is the plangent strain of Bridget Hayden’s ’Solace’, along with the watery, strumming-by-an-open-window vibe of ‘De Dröigen Blaar’ by Hypnotic Sleep, and the strung-out beauty of Scythe’s ‘Flower, Drop’, but you can rest assured that the whole LP perfectly plays thru like a heart-breaking, personal mixtape compilation from a friend who you’re never going to see again.

Please allow the sentimentality, though, ‘cos BEB will live on both thru their catalogue and in their metamorphosis into Low Company, who have evidently picked up the baton and are continuing to run with it into greener pastures fertilised by new and old wavers and ravers alike.

LP (10)

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Play All LP (10)

Boomkat Product Review:

Blackest Ever Black draw a line under their tenure as preeminent label of the decade with a typically affective compilation that perversely introduces new acts to their fold(ing).