Port Mahone kick off proceedings with a rack entitled 'River.' Crikey. No gentle introductions here: the listener is assaulted by a barrage of clattering, rattling percussion and what sounds for all the world like a spiralling accordion, a collision between Test Department and an Irish folk band on bad LSD, and lots of it.
You'd think this might be a tough one to follow, but Kirameki's 'Sayonara, Gansgters' is sufficiently weird and wired to do the trick. Tripped-out vocals and toppy suff guitars are only the beginning, and it's a crazy journey that concludes with a panned vocal loop that's enough to bend even the straightest of brains.
Sonorous industrial clangs and sombre trumpets provide the sonic backdrop to the operatic vocals that tower over 'The Crippled Court Jester' by Per Olund Band. I begin by thinking 'Tilt' era Scott Walker might be a fair comparison, but as scuttling, unsettling incidentals and strings add layers of tension to this cinematic curio, I'm forced to conclude that this is far, far weirder. I'm talking completely deranged. I mean, in text / chatroom parlance, WTF?
Taub's 'Badlands' comes as something of a relief, being a comparatively straightforward instrumental piece, and after this brief interlude, I feel ready to face more weirdness.
This is perhaps as well, as the rest of the album delivers weirdness in spades. While The Artificial Sea's contribution may not be as overtly experimental or strange as some of the other tracks, its tense synth and string drenched sound is far from conventional. It is, however, really rather good. The same is true of Whizz Kid's warped shoegaze and the courtroom elegance of Milenka's 'Atta Atta,' which harbours strange and sinister undercurrents, the sound of Bjork's spirit stolen from her soul and trapped in a dungeon.
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In fact, if you're willing to take a walk on the weird side, there's plenty of interest to be found here, and there isn't a duff or dull track to be found across the 14 collected here. From the proggy post-rock of Sadomundo, here represented by 'Ninth Train,' via the almost country leanings of The Temple Cloud Country Club, the sparse and occasionally jolting electronica of Anata Wa Sukkari Tsukarete Shimai, the chiming minimalist avant-gardism of Lettelete aka Ememe, to the serenely atmospheric piano work of Harold Nono and Hidekazu Wakabayeshi, it's eclecticism and unusualness all the way.
Credit must go to the guys at Bearsuit, not only for finding such a remarkable array of out-there acts, but also for sequencing this compilation so attentively, in order that it feels intentional, rather than simply a collection of songs cobbled together.
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