Label: Efficient Space – ES032
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: Australia
Released: 10 Nov 2023
Genre: Electronic, Rock, Pop
Style: Folk, New Wave, Lo-Fi
Every now and then a collection of songs are compiled and windows on worlds you knew nothing about before open up. New contexts are formed around things you might have heard of but never properly ‘got’. Seven years ago DJ Sundae and Julien Dechery assembled Sky Girl - a collection of one-off micro-pressed / micro-genre songs existing well outside the mainstream that touch upon something so special it’s hard to put into words, but essentially created a genre in itself. Numero’s Personal Space revealed 70’s and 80’s soul artists working way under the commercial radar who were otherwise destined for a life in obscurity.
The thread that ties Searchlight Moonbeam together might not be as easy to define but the sense of cohesion is a rich as ever. It is underpinned by 10 years of extensively reached broadcasts as Time Is Away and a unique shared love and passion for music. Stylistically and geographically diverse, it bridges an age gap of 90 years - from Harry Plunket-Greene’s 1931 haunting and penniless ‘Hurdy-Gurdy Man’ to the present-day French DIY of Omertà and Gyeongsu. Totally unknown delicate Chinese classical (Chen Ming-chang) and sentimental happy/sad acoustic folk from Maher Shalal Hash Baz associates Kasumi Trio finds an equal footing with choice picks from Canterbury-scene avant-pop veterans Slapp Happy and Simon Fisher Turner’s King Of Luxembourg group, whilst the down ’n out anthem ‘Fast Money Blues’ from Marcia Basset’s short-lived Siltbreeze group Un is beautifully bombed out, bruised and deserves wider recognition.
Yet despite the wide-raging and occasionally disorientating references, there’s nothing clever or self-congratulatory about this collection, and if you sat back and closed your eyes you might imagine happily listening to these records on an autumn afternoon at their home. It’s honest and uncontrived, which they might happily shrug off as a batch of songs they both just really like, and perhaps that’s all it is. But a compilation this special as this gets under your skin, with songs that can knit fabric of your everyday life for the times ahead. (Mint / New - with free DL)
Tracklist
1. Bo Harwood & John Cassavetes - No One Around To Hear It 03:48
2. Chen Ming Chang - Rainwater
3. Bhairavi Raman & Nanthesh Sivarajah - Bittersweet Reflections
4. The King Of Luxembourg - Poptones
5. Slapp Happy - Is It You?
6. O.G. Jigg - Jesus Is My Jam
7. Klang - As It Is
8. Scala - Fuser
9. Soft Location - Let The Moon Get Into It
10. Gyeongsu - YZOBEL (feat. CROCHE)
11. Omertà - Moments In Love
12. Kasumi Trio - Cabbage Butterfly
13. Un - Fast Money Blues
14. Delphine Dora - V
15. Harry Plunket-Greene - The Hurdy-Gurdy Man
