Planet E, bless 'em, are at pains to point out that this CD release of various artists from across their catalogue is by no means an attempt to exploit a bit of back catalogue for healthy financial gain. Nope, this album is, in fact, packed with previously unreleased or hard-to-find goodness from the great label, so expect a stampede at your local Detroit techno specialists this weekend!
There's a typically intriguing and brilliant production from Carl Craig under the Paperclip People guise, called 'Steam' - the structure will be familiar to fans of previous Paperclip People outings but the sounds are, as ever, utterly thrilling in their ingenuity.
Another exclusive track is the slightly dippy electronica of Craig and Chaz Vincent's 'Human Powered Fight' which is a touch Germanic in its ominous high drama electro-symphony.
Elsewhere, aficionados of the label won't find anything that they haven't heard before but, brought together on the one CD, the incredible diversity of the label's recent output seems to make much more sense that it did as the twelves dribbled into the shops. Tracks by artists like Common Factor and the incredibly talented and diverse Recloose should be a revelation to those who missed them first time around.
So, Carl Craig's label goes from strength to strength - those people that decry it all as 'beeps and bol**cks' may still persist but Craig will have the last laugh when they sit down and write the history books. This is future music extraordinaire.
by James Poletti