3 out of 5

Produced by: Various

Label: Drag City

Hey Drag City, indeed.  Such an appropriately chummy title.  The label’s page for this release honestly has a better take on this than I could offer, positioning (in a humorously deprecative tone) it as a throwback to the label’s too-cool-for-school, scrappier days.  And though DC is by no means clean cut in its current output, it has followed the path of many of its stable: growing up, discarding some of the bratty enthusiasm of youth.  Look no further than Royal Trux – the label’s first release – and their climb from art-noise duo to skronky rock band.  (They also deliver one of the best tracks on here.)

But while I’d like to use this framing to say that all’s well that ends well – that if you like early Drag City, this comp is for you – I’m not quite sure that’s true.  It’s a very uneven listen, even if there are some definite standout tracks.  But a lot of the extra wandering stuff gets grouped together, and seems almost selected to test your tolerance for this stuff, whether its the noisome lead-in to Gastr Del Sol’s track, Alastair Galbraith’s wandering entry, or the go-nowhere clatter of the usually goes-somewhere Red Krayola.  I’m also puzzled by Red Red Meat’s ad by Red Red Meat’s appearance here, because I didn’t think they had any Drag City output…

These dips aside, there’s a lot of very interesting stuff here, if not pretty fantastic, like the aforementioned Trux, or the opening track by the Palace Brothers’ surprising oomph.  At the very least, barrier to entry aside, this comp does provide a nice slice of slightly-outer stuff to assuredly kick start at least one new interest, and is definitely a fair representation of the Drag City mind set of any era.