Various - Populism download free

Another excellent release from the Segment label, taking new work from four of the more established artists on the label with debut pieces from the other six, making it a strong indicator of the label's ideas and the direction in which it plans to take the listener. Starting with a debut track, Montage by Seychal-Mills, an absolute cracker of a track, subtle piano, deep bass and excellent percussion, it's a great start and gave me hope for the rest of the compilation. Hope ripped away by the Sevenless track that followed, glitchy beats to start, overly aggressive rapping and a track unlike anything I'd heard previously on the label, and to be honest it would do me no harm to hear no more like it, as it doesn't really fit with the other tracks. Back on form with Nurphobe by [techlure] though, another debut track, reminiscent of early Artificial Intelligence era Warp. The good form continues with I/DEX - Aviris, where the glitchy beginning gives way to an ambient track of considerable quality. Another debut track follows, Abyss and the Diving Babies by Ephemeris, making excellent use of subtle piano and languid beats to create the flow into the h.t.t.p track that follows, Illusory Copy, a haunting track with deep drums and glitchy beats, loads of reverb and some wonderful sounds. Randomajestiq provides the next track, Danu, a 4/4 deep techno track that gets better the more you listen to it, as does DJ Ki's All of Jazz, jazz influenced bass and drums with a really nice melody to compliment it. The last two tracks though are two of the best I've heard on the label. Autism's sublime Wizard of Cords, rather forunately submitted to the label just prior to a live performance in New York in which the artist's hard drive crashed, shows the excellent progression that Vadim Militsin is making towards more recognition and acknowledgement of his undoubted talents. The final track is another gem, Inbue's Dreaming of Aeon, again with languid beats and haunting piano melodies, a superb track. So, with the exception of just one track, this is a truly excellent compilation, with the only drawback being it's availabilty soley in mp3 format. Tunes this good deserve to be immortalised forever on vinyl, not exist purely in digital form. The label, unfortunately, disagrees. But for a free download, its highly recommended and you may just find something that will move you.