Unearthing buried treasure is what this label’s all about, dipping into the hauntological hangover of years gone by, to resurrect or recreate their own interpretations.
An ethos that seeps into this recent compilation, a tenth anniversary celebration that features a whole host of new, remixed, rare and unreleased material, giving the curious a decent taste of what floats their boat.
Starting things on an absolute high, Bernard Grancher’s contribution is seriously lovely. A Stereolab-esque plucked love letter in chanting vox and beaded synthetics. A buoyant sun-kissed romance that slips into Brian Duffy’s radiophonic intro for “Wind On Combe Gibbet” before he skydives into a solid groove. A serotonin blush of bassy bubble-wrap, periscoping a host of sonically satisfying details and seahorsing rhythmics.
Loving the flip coin aesthetics of each track offers, the shifting moods you navigate through. The tribal frazzle of Pete Hope’s contribution documenting a possible launderette Tinder date in tight piano pins, bourbon burning vocals and swaggering circuitry. The light lounge panther that is Language Field’s contribution, garland-floating in silky swishes of airy flute and handclaps, slipping into a short burst of otherworldliness from The United States Of America’s lead singer Dorothy Moskowitz and Swedish purveyor of oddness Retep Folo. The sudden Afro-funk thump of that Spiritual South and Amampondo track getting a good rattle out of the double glazing.
Yeah, it’s a satisfying ride, that sees Dolly Dolly — Buried Treasure’s very own Max Headroom (whose albums are always worth hunting down) — getting a frustratingly short but decisive innings, before the late-night cellar bar of your imagination is treated to the spidery tonalities of Annabel [lee]. A solid momentum held further by Magnetic Cartridge Quartet‘s foot-shifting diodes and the algorithmic lilt of Veris’s “Pipe” that follows them, all rounding into the rejuvenating geometrics of the label’s supergroup Revbjelde. Chilled-out dynamics that outro on the child-like casio of Silvia Sommer, that spectrally dine like one of those chintzy radiophonic intros a certain Ms Derbyshire used to dabble with.Decapoda is a superb compilation that whets my appetite for (and comes with the tickets for) Buried Treasure’s upcoming birthday celebrations, taking place beneath a 1960’s brutalist car park in Bracknell New Town on Saturday 14 October 2023.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
