(May 2010) Where to start with a record label is not always an easy decision. You could try go for the best known artist, or the one receiving the most praise on the always unbiased internet. A good starting point can be a compilation. Sure, it’s the easy option but there can be something in the safe choice; especially if it’s a five year anniversary compilation, double disc and on Anna Logue Records. For anyone who has been flirting with the label, The Anna Logue Years – Fifth Year Anniversary Compilation is a secure starting point as well as an archive of what this label has achieved in the last half decade.
In a nice twist, the album is laid out based on Anna Logue’s release catalogue. The two CD’s move from the first Anna Logue release, Anna 001, chronologically up to Anna 031, which is this CD. This works surprisingly well as a concept, it brings the listener along the journey that Anna Logue has been and is on. From their early days of Camera Obscura and Sleep Museum the album progresses into Sudeten Crèche, ADN’ Ckrystall and Poeme Electronique. The tracks weave their way through the catalogue, with new wave sitting beside minimal synth to warm electronics alongside cold synthesizers. The track years flip and jump across the two discs, from the early 1980s to the latter years of the 2000s, never touching the 90s. The second disc sees Anna Logue’s musings with darkwave with artists such as Dilemma and The Hands of Cain. Anna Logue have teamed up with Kernkrach for one of the tracks, Sonnenbrandt’s “Diskolied.” Fingers crossed this means further collaboration between the two German focal points of the wave revival. As the album comes to a close some final treats are in store, exclusive tracks by Camera Obscura, Silicon Scientist and Twins Natalia.
This compilation displays the range and variety that the label from North East Germany has to offer. It is a showcasing of the lengths that label boss Marc Schaffer and the Anna Logue team have gone to, unearthing past artists, encouraging some to release music again whilst putting out brand new material. The album wraps up the familial and nurturing aspect of the imprint, from the cover art by ADN’ Ckrystall to home grown talent like Silicon Scientist. But, it goes further than that. The Anna Logue Years maps the life of a label that was one of the first to start down the wave renaissance road, a road that hopefully Anna Logue will continue down for many years to come.
The Anna Logue Years – Fifth Year Anniversary Compilation is out now on Anna Logue.
