For a while now, Wharf Cat Records have been no stranger to me or this website. But, if you’re not familiar, they’re one of the best independent labels going right now. Good ears, better heads on their shoulders, and, apparently, even better hearts. The wonderful collective is releasing a new compilation, featuring 22 tracks of new material from 22 stellar artists. And $30 of every sale of this $32 double LP (you read that right), will go to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It’s a most noble gesture of charity towards an organization that is undoubtedly working overtime to try to mend the innumerable damages being done to human rights, and the dismal backpedaling to which society seems all too susceptible during this administration. To Michelle Nigro, Leland Drake, Doug and Trip Warner: Thank you.
Among those contributing on the compilation (full list below) is New York experimental and noise artist Rene Nuñez Cabrera, aka Horoscope. Having released the searing Misogyny Stone LP on Wharf Cat last year, and Nature Will Grow Even After You Have Lost Everything via Ascetic House shortly after, Horoscope has certainly exhibited a widening of spectrum in his work, incorporating modular synthesizer with the raw tape manipulations and contact microphones of his beginnings. It’s an ever evolving performance, never a boring or unfulfilling one. His track, and subsequent album closer, titled “Bri,” acts as a dooming, unknowable cloud slowly enshrouding our landscape. Lingering orchestral synthesizers seep in, like a repressed memory being summoned from the nether regions of the brain. It’s an ever growing formation, a new layer of gravity added on with every repetition. Takes it time with you. Glacial. Discerning shifts in tone introduce hope. A soft rumble off in the distance. A cough. It’s pretty and sombre and real, a grounding send-off to end this powerful assembly of artists.
Preorder the compilation HERE, or simply donate to the ACLU HERE.
Track List
1. Dollar Band – “Too Sensitive” – 3:10
2. The Men – “Shimmer and Shine” – 3:52
3. Psychic Blood – “Dissident ” – 2:25
4. Mail Thief – “Pliable” – 1:07
5. Ornament – “Faithful Essence” – 3:58
6. Alice Cohen “Hourglass” – 4:08
7. Palberta – “When I Come” – 2:11
8. Weeping Icon – “Ankle” – 4:19
9. SIGNAL – “Park After Dark” – 1:50
10. Old Maybe – “Making Alone (Demo)” – 1:06
11. Snakehole – “Dorian Grey Elephants” – 3:03
12. Pop 1280 – “When No One Cares” – 3:00
13. Jeff Zagers – “Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day” – 3:02
14. Abandon – “Calorie Giri” – 2:44
15. Blanche Blanche Blanche – “Size Blind (Live in Brooklyn)” 2016)” – 1:37
16. The Sediment Club – “B and the Electric Kill“ – 3:51
17. Kate Mohanty – “Priorities” – 3:26
18. Merchandise – “Out Of Time” – 2:23
19. Profligate – “Don’t Let Go” – 3:31
20. House of Feelings – “Keep on Running (Black Cola Coffee Mix)” – 4:16
21. Cheerleader – “Vain” – 4:01
22. Horoscope – “Bri” – 4:11
