Rough trade are good at compilations and they duly create many, each it would seem with its own peculiar trait. This particular double disc of self-appraisal celebrates the shops thirty year history by asking famous fans and members of the label (Jarvis Cocker, Bjork, Thurston Moore, Bobby Gillespie, James Murphy) to pick their favourite offerings and we are presented with a chronological catalogue from almost every year from 1976 up until 2005 that Rough Trade has been releasing records.
Right from The Modern Lovers verbal gold – “some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes/this never happened to Pablo Picasso” – I was listening. A sonic safari ride through girl pop-punk (Kleenex), murder soundtrack schizophrenia (The Mekons), super funky, thrust-defying groove (Afrika Bambaataa And The Soul Sonic Force) plus a personal introduction to Adam And The Ants and I was the proverbial child in the also proverbial candy store of un-tapped resources of musical history – not to mention the fucking Pixies. Well you would put the Pixies in a compilation if you could, wouldn’t you eh? Disc one, then, is complete.
High praise indeed so far, and I actually prefer disc two: from Joe Strummer gone solo; cowbell enhanced, guitar-lick-heavy trip-hop (Stock, Hausen and Walkman), deep, dark, experimental electronica (Stereolab and Nurse With Wound); to the aching serenades of Lal Waterson and Oliver Knight; the trembling beauty of Karen Dalton’s fragility and the ring-leading, woman admiring, sex-licked, circus freak show of James Luther Dickinson, it’s a relentlessly entertaining trip trough a small section of the Rough Trade archives that repeatedly transcends genres. It dips in quality occasionally, but provides so much of interest that it’s really hard to take any issue with that – and anyway, of course it does, it’s a double-disc compilation.
A number of things became clear to me throughout this celebration: firstly, the mass of quality artists that Rough Trade have had on their books over the years, and thus how influential they have been, to listeners and creators of music alike. Secondly, that as a label - whilst retaining a commendable ethic - they have deftly moved with the times, swapping from the dirty, dangerous, obnoxious punk-rock/butt-rock of the seventies, through hillbilly gospel (The Carter Family), overtly homosexual, sadistic clamourings to be fucked by a sailor (The Frogs), up to and including the way too well observed wit-fest of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’.
I knew I liked Rough Trade, but not this much. This is the best compilation I have heard this year, and I recommend you get yourself a copy, especially if you think you might like to hear Schneider TM vs Kpt. Michi. Gan turn The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light’ into a slowed-down, synthed-up , ambient bleepathon. You might think this is a good thing, you might not.
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