various artists - independents day

by Gareth Mytton
Released: Fri, 2008/07/04 on AIM
ARTROCKER RATING:
For those of you that only tend to read the start of reviews - here’s the short version: this is a 2CD set to celebrate independent music and raise money for charity. CD1 is a covers compilation of independently released tunes, while CD2 features songs by new acts, picked largely by the bands on CD1. It’s available for three days physically (from July 4) and as a download for a week. It’s a 3 on the Artrocker scale.

And for those of you who like the details…

The quality control here goes wonky at times. The Infadels bring little more than squelchy keyboards to ‘Steady As She Goes’, while The Prodigy’s take on ‘Ghost Town’ replaces the tempo shifts and eerie vocals of the original with bludgeoning, rolling synths. It’s different to The Specials, but the earlier recording got the story across with much more subtlety.
Devendra Banhart turns ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ into a folky strumalong...
The best performances, however, make up for weaknesses elsewhere on the record: The Futureheads’s choppy ‘With Every Heartbeat’ is quickly followed by an elegiac ‘Tug Boat’ from British Sea Power. Maximo Park play a faithful version of the woeful relationship in ‘Was There Anything I Could Do?’, while Devendra Banhart turns ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ into a folky strumalong. Rodrigo y Gabriela, the Mexican guitar duo who started out in heavy metal bands back home, relish in their alternately furious and subtle take of ‘Orion’. On the second CD, the cream of the crop are probably Thomas Tantrum (whose ‘Swan Lake’ cheekily drops in some Tchaikovsky), The Tenderfoot (the whimsical neurotic in ‘People Are The Problem’ sounds so much like Gruff Rhys I’m amazed they hadn’t borrowed him for the day) and Basia Bulat (not Bullit, as my preview CD had it – the galloping, country-tinged ‘In The Night’ has a lyrical sting worth listening for). It’s all for charity, so if you want to stick your hand in your pocket – and stick it to The Major Label Man at the same time – get yourself a copy.

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