Sinners Grief – Demo 2017 [2017; self-released]

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Introducing themselves to the world with the six tracks of this demo, the Swedish group of Sinners Grief play a straight-faced strain of retro doom metal with upbeat pacing and sturdy riffs, while the clean but down-cast vocals belt out mourning and foreboding.  It all comes together well enough, but despite some game efforts from each musician, the songs of the demo end up sounding too repetitive to make much of an impression, which combines with the throw-back nature of the music to cast doubts on the likelihood of the band having enough ideas to pull together a worthwhile full album.  Despite that, the songs are played with enough verve for fans of low-budget doom to give it a cursory listen, and with the band putting out feelers for a replacement bassist, there’s at least the suggestion that they’re looking to improve their situation.

Various Artists – Warp10+2 Classics 89-92 [1999; Matador, Play It Again Sam, Source, Virgin France S.A., Warp Records]

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Collecting several of the singles from the first few years of Warp Records’ catalog, and presenting them in order of their positions in the label’s catalog numbers (not always matching up directly with actual release), this decade-anniversary compilation gives a quick run
(by omitting most of the remixes)

through those recordings and the way they defined Warp’s foundational style.  In keeping with the label’s need to clearly demonstrate their approach, the bulk of the songs feature very clean production on their beats and synth-tones, along with fairly simple structuring of their house/techno patterns, with the most ‘cluttered’-sounding likely being the hip-hop-glazed “Hey! Hey! Can U Relate?” by DJ Mink.

Most of the other songs omit vocals entirely, which ends up being one of the main strains linking artists which stuck with the label as long-term attachments (e.g., Nightmares On Wax and LFO), those which had faded away or disbanded even before this compilation’s release (Sweet Exorcist), ones which eventually bounced to other labels (Forgemasters, Coco Steel & Lovebomb), and the groups which put just one or two singles to their name before disappearing (The Step, Tuff Little Unit). 

The electronic nature of the music is another big link, of course, as are the extensive use of loops, the very nature of the hardware used at the time, and an undercurrent of funk, but picking out the particulars of style which separate the songs’ similarities is one of the collection’s more entertaining points of usage.  Primarily a historical document, it also shows that the singles used to build Warp’s reputation had better-than-decent technique backing them up, even if the same can’t be said of the B-sides.