- A tastemaking experimental label celebrates 20 years.
- If you're a newcomer to iDEAL Recordings, the monthly radio show hosted by the label's founder, Joachim Nordwall, would be a good place to start. It's a solid primer on the spread of styles and sounds of Gothenburg's premier underground music label. Nordwall, who founded iDEAL in 1998, has other projects, including the bands Saturn And The Sun and The Skull Defekts—both have released albums this year—and a string of other collaborations. But to really get the label, you'd need to attend one of its shows. iDEAL comes into its own as a platform for multi-disciplinary artists from the DIY, noise, experimental electronics and sound art scenes—take the local industrial act Trepaneringsritualen, the instrument-building duo Coppice, or the conceptual artist John Duncan, who all feature on The Black Book, iDEAL's 20th anniversary compilation.
A bit like Posh Isolation, Ascetic House and Hospital Productions––several acts from those labels feature here, including Puce Mary, JS Aurelius and Prurient––there's something cultish about iDEAL. Over the years it has turned its back on genres and formed its own world of artists and fans. Whether something has been made with a guitar or a newly invented instrument is almost inconsequential in the iDEAL universe, because the catalogue is aligned on mood over anything else. That's why Samurai Horo's Pact Infernal and Ramleh, a British power electronics duo from the '80s, make sense side by side on The Black Book.
Drone is another of iDEAL's fortes. It's celebrated here with a 17-minute-long swell from Jim O'Rourke, and a shorter, more intensive piece from Stephen O'Malley. Trepaneringsritualen's contribution is the most cavernous and commanding of the lot, and is one of the highlights of the compilation. The same is true of Drew St Ivany's gouging closer, "A Mixer And A Delay Unit." Unexpectedly, the clubbier inclusions are even more vital, like the skulking acid tracks from Dungeon Acid and Autumns, and Pact Infernal's moody, greyscale techno. In making so many styles cohere on The Black Book, Nordwall successfully highlights the label's entire spectrum.
Tracklist01. JASSS - Parental Youth
02. Pact Infernal - The Eternal Return
03. Ramleh - Entropy II 0
04. Vanity Productions - Ideal Life
05. Jim O'Rourke - In Regards
06. Mokira - Cats In The Cradle
07. Jonathan Uliel Saldanha - Siren Frontier
08. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe - Ehh??? (For Folke Rabe)
09. Dungeon Acid - Afro Acid
10. Carlos Giffoni & Prurient - Returning Rains
11. Ectoplasm Girls - Neuropean
12. JS Aurelius - All In Sync With All, And Me
13. John Duncan - Shortwave6
14. JH1.FS3 - At The Bottom Of The Night
15. Stephen O'Malley - LOUP
16. E3 Trepaneringsritualen Manifest As Tyr x Reid x Vend - Ond Pau Ne Atto, Od Pau Ne Hofdo
17. Coppice - Flywheel (Flood Blowing)
18. Autumns - Lose It
19. Drew St Ivany - A Mixer And A Delay Unit