5 out of 5

Label: Zum

Produced by: Yvonne and George Chen (organized by; produced by various)

I wasn’t sure why only Zum Audio volume 2 seemed to be ubiquitous in shops at the time, but looking at the releases in the series, it’s a bit clearer: volume 3 came out after CD shopping was more of a thing, and volume 1 was only a loosey that came along with Zum magazine, a San Fran fanzine that ran until the late 90s.

I bought this for the Modest Mouse track at the time, snapping up anything I could find with the band, but as my tastes expanded and I’d revisit the comp, I realized – hey, there are a lot of bands on this thing I really like, like Dianogah, and Rex… And furthermore, tunes that turned me on to other bands I’d either only bumped in to or hadn’t heard of at all, with a selection that somehow ranges from quiet folk to loud skronk but never seems at odds with itself, a sign of both the excellent sequencing and curation of this comp. Because if you look at the others in the series – a series that’s still going, the Zum crew still running their own label! – it’s clear they aim for this mix of known / unknown and varied but linked sounds.

Many years have passed with this comp in my collection, and as I try to pare down, I ask: for the bands I super duper collect, is this comp a necessity, i.e. can I get these songs anywhere else? So I’ll put it on again, and experience the same thing every time: front to back indie rock satisfaction, and the desire to go hunt down almost every band on here, just to see what the rest of their stuff sounds like.

True, some of this is cherry picked (Windsor for the Derbys instrumental track is like the most consistently loud thing they’ve ever done), but this is one of those instances where that doesn’t bother me, because it doesn’t feel insincerely done, moreso just because, yeah, that’s a really good Windsor track, and it made sense here.

Bonus points for listing out contact info and / or where some of these songs are otherwise available in the tracklist. This particular comp’s sound can be very, very generally summarized by some of the bands I mentioned, extending that to the end ranges of their quietest and loudest selves. All of the tracks are factually good; don’t tell me otherwise.