Manchester Music Online Catch of the Day 2 Review CATCH OF THE DAY * recommended * :: Various Artists :: 02 April 2007 / Kipper Records / 8 Trk CD By JA I’ll just start off by getting out my system how wonderful the packaging on this CD is. It’s a CDR, lovingly embossed with original artwork on the CD's onbody printing. There’s an inner printed, hand assembled, colour card sleeve, individually numbered. This goes into another rustic, corrugated card sleeve with more artwork and it all comes in its own brown paper bag complete with logo. It all harks back to the original days of limited edition 7” Vinyl releases. Little packets of music you had to care for and pay attention to. It’s in a wild contrast to other demos we get here, assembled by redundant dockers with overused , blunted magic markers and second hand plastic wallets. Anyhow, musically there’s plenty to match this splendid approach to releasing records. Scott Bruzenack (California USA) opens proceedings with some hazy, poppy drawls, graced with flutes and the slap of double bass and drum snares. It blows like an Americana folk wind into Staffordshire’s Mundane Music who provide an instrumental formed around pianos, echoes, bells and the jingle of percussion on the computer edited crossover “A Train For You”. The Deep Element (Malmo, Sweden) sensibly continue with similar themes but delve deeper into the world of electronica. It’s a disjointed journey, randomly cut and pasted into the gaps between beats like a beautiful picture broken into smaller, sharp edged pieces. The Gray, with “Sleep Facing East”, conjure up Eastern and classical flavours from their Cheshire home base, mixing meditation tape ideology with the fantastically wide electronic ambitions of a more ethereal M83. Parisian DJ Wise makes his contribution “Shake The Dust” sound like something between a Terminator soundtrack, the bins being emptied and hip hop tracks being loudly played in the flat next door. It’s left to Dupe with “Silkworkers” to drum up some Brighton Beach sounds. Actually it sounds more like a sun rise as the looped acoustic shuffle ebbs away underneath the strange synths and harmonic scrapes. Manchester’s very own Sanjuro 77 pay tribute to Frank Sidebottom’s home town on “Night Falls On Timperley”, a ghostly encounter of Gary Numan, Most Haunted and seedy nightclub beats all brought together in a wild experiment. “Sanctuary” by Edmund Coleman (Glasgow) provides the closing sounds and maybe the most strange. Ad-hoc strikes of synthetic glockenspiels and Japanese chimes calmly close this album. Catch Of The Day is a collection of the weird and the wonderful with an ear firmly on the experimental. But within this, every note is accessible and veers happily between dance, traditional forms and even folk. It’d be so easy to create a dance orientated record or a bag full of acoustic numbers – it’s another matter entirely to go out looking for people exploring the netherworld between current trends. It’s not just a moral, artistic victory though. Everything on this tastefully limited eight track record is well worth engaging. MMMM

Manchester independent label Kipper Records newest release is again stunningly packaged and once unwrapped the music is just as pleasurable with sublime soundscapes and enchanting melodies. Rarely does the packaging of a CD album generate such appreciation yet the hand-drawn artwork optimises how Catch of the Day 2 is miles away from being a typical supermarket-sold, mainstream release. Scott Bruzenak opens the album of downtempo delights with ‘Things Change’, folk and electronics meet as the Californian artist sings quaintly “Make your demons beautiful, and them make them insane.” The previous compilation in the series, Catch of the Day outlined the label’s ethos with a song each by Mundane Music and Sanjuro77 both of whom impress again with their newer material. Mundane Music’s ‘A Train For You’ moves joyously with well-layered instruments and jingling bells. It charms and is reminiscent of something between Pulp’s mid-90s music (though without Javis Cocker’s vocals) and a synthesized Velvet Underground. Sanjuro77’s ‘Night Falls on Timperley’ is the penultimate track containing looped beats which contrast with crackles, chimes and beeps. More dance-inducing than the ambience of the rest of the album. ‘Possibly Later’ by The Deep Element has a metronomic beat which jitters and lags pleasantly, conjuring memories of Tortoise or Sigur Rós, while somewhat surreal images come to my mind — giant robots or industrial machines beautifully breaking down, their lament scored excellently with the stuttering piano. Of all the songs, The Gray’s ‘Sleep Facing East’ does the most for me and is pure cinema, a perfect accompaniment for images. Distorted strings make way for adagio piano, which appears elegantly with electronic effects adding to the progressive sounds. Halfway through the song, the tempo builds, with guitar emerging from the background, leading to a crescendo with all previous elements enhanced with drums and operatic vocals. Wonderful! Limited to just 100 exquisitely handmade copies, Catch of the Day 2 is a leftfield dream. As with music on Warp or by Bjork these sounds may not be to everyone’s taste but those that enjoy it should adore it. Ben Verghese Friday 1 June 2007

Back in 2005, we were introduced to a small indie called Kipper. Their ‘Catch of the Day’ was an introduction to their eclectic mix of lo-fi electro infused artists and featured Mundane Music and Sanjuro77. 18 months on they’ve been good enough to send out 'Volume 2', again looking as if it was put together by an Arts and Craft group with an excess of corrugated cardboard (and I mean that in a good way). Mundane Music feature again. This time their ‘A Train For You’ pulls together a beautiful echoing keyboard with shimmering percussion and hip hop beats. It’s another cracker from a superbly understated band. They really are very, very good. Sanjuro77 also return, their ‘Night Falls On Timperley’ follows the lead set with previous 'Catch of the Day' contribution ‘In The Company of Crows’, and not just by including the word ‘on’ in the title. Clearly preferring rhythm over melody, ‘Night Falls…’ is, in essence, a bafflingly hooky stuttered drum pattern, melded with electrostatic noise, sci-fi beeps and crackling synth. It isn’t going to win an Ivor Novello, but then Ronan Keating did so what are they worth anyway? Scott Bruzenak contributes the Willy Mason-esque ‘Things Change’, a pleasantly-stoned little acoustic number with some gloriously ‘not arsed’ vocals. ‘Sleep Facing East’ is a superb blissed-out electronic dreamscape, opera vocals and trip-hop beats combining in the only way opera vocals and trip-hop beats could, and its protagonists the Gray are almost the best here. Almost the best because that honour would have to go to Dupe for their excellent ‘Silkworkers’, where they take what could be one of Noel Gallagher’s cast-offs and turn it into something unlike anything else since records begun. Sparsely rhythmical drums and distorted screeches of tuneful feedback soak the guitars, building to a bizarre organic euphoria. Fabulous stuff. 'Catch of the Day 2' is four times better than 'Catch of the Day', because there’re six more Kipper artists than last time. With the exception of the perhaps-too-challenging-for-this-reviewer DJ Wise (like a blind man hitting bin lids with a really confused concept of timing) it’s another perfect collection. Do what you have to this summer, but do it with these artists as your soundtrack. Predictably outstanding stuff.

i may be biased because i'm on this thing, but this compy is great. i am proud as a perch to be a part of it. thank you guys:)