(8/10) I want to say that I love this compilation. I knew I would like at least some of it, considering albums released by Nosordo regularly have the honor of being kept on my desk so I can reach them easily, and I was curious about Glasvocht as well.
In truth, I did like it...until I got to the 5th track. The first four were smooth, intricate, and interesting offerings from Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do, Mapstation, and Dijf Sanders, but when the song by The Cheese started, I had to check to see if I had the right CD. With lyrics (which the others lacked) that were fuzzy and poorly recorded, and an actual band to back it up rather than the distortions and layers of both organic and computerized sounds like all of the others, it left me a little confused as to why it was included. On another compilation, I would probably have loved it.
The next song I had to stop at (or, actually, to stop) was Douglas Ferguson's "Dawning." It pans from left to right and back again so continuously, it was giving me a headache. Like trying to swim underwater at the beach without any sense of which way is up, it made me feel like I was being tossed helplessly back and forth. The song itself was not so bad, but the production was distracting and left me a little seasick.
And finally, along the same peculiar lines as The Cheese' song, The Ordinary Seamen didn't belong either. I thought including The Cheese might have been a joke until I reached The Ordinary Seamen. Unlike The Cheese, though, I would not have loved this song on another compilation. I would expect this kind of singing from someone in their bedroom, not from a label that I love and the label they chose to partner with.
But it isn't fair of me to only talk about the bad music on this compilation, since I disliked only 3 of the 16 songs. I only started there because the 13 other delicious songs are so difficult to describe in a way that I feel does them justice. Plus, it is hard to pick out favorites because they are so good. If it were just those 13, this compilation would have gotten ten out of ten.
Mapstation's "For Malmö" sounds like an updated Tetrus song, pleasantly bloopy and just fast enough to be upbeat; I can see the colored blocks falling in my head. Osso Bucco's delay action in the beginning of "Three Days They Slept" is like pulling up the blankets to make a little fort with your lover while the sunlight shines through, while the rest of the song is the nostalgia you feel for that moment when you think about it many years later. The fractured and twisted recordings of "Fraying Rain No Sleep" by Seth Warren and David Dupuis is like waking up in a strange city where you don't speak the language when you've just had a particularly disconcerting dream. And Yasushi Miura's dizzying "sounds.visual" reminds me equally of being on drugs and playing race car video games, though not both at the same time.
I guess it would finally be fair for me to say I loved this compilation. It is easy enough to skip over the ones that grate my nerves, and the rest are a big bandaid for that little papercut.
- Eden Hemming Rose, Foxy Digitals (USA) www.foxydigitalis.com

Glasvocht and Nosordo are two fairly young record labels that seemingly dont care about whats hot and whats not. They share a love for the capricious and this brand new compilation clearly shows they have an eye for good but unknown artists. Were For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed is a perfect title for this album as I only knew a handful of the featured artists by name. The quality of the collected material is surprisingly high though.
Making compilations is a tough business, but Glasvocht and Nosordo did it well. The bands and artists on Were For The Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed sound very diverse at moments, but connected in a very distinct way. The record labels introduce us to some of the bands on their roster, but release a compilation thats going way beyond the superficiality of a promotional label sampler.
Its awesome to see how very contrasting songs by different composers still harmonize well when put together on a compilation. Maybe its the lack of any singing on all these tracks that make them feel like theyre connected. Anyhow, whether the artists use keyboards, electronics, rainy field recordings or the more common instrumentation, their songs mostly bathe in a beautiful melancholic shadow. Complex sounds and detailed but fragile electronics by Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do and Mapstation contrast highly with the hard enervating cold sounds of The Idealist (you might remember Joachim Nordwall of the now defunct trio Kid Commando) or the pumping breakbeats of Fractional or Yasushi Miura. In between theres time for the spaced out noise of Douglas Ferguson or Ved, that explores sounds and concepts. Then theres the more conventional noiserock of a band like The Ordinary Seaman, and the wave discopunk of The Cheese.
This is a compilation that carries some really good music by unknown independent bands or individuals from all over the world. Ill definitely remember Ljudbilden & Piloten, Do, Mapstation, The Idealist and Det Svenska Folket, theyre the ones that stand out in my opinion. Indietronica, soundscapes, noise, postpunk and breakbeats, its all on here Highly varied and experimental but, apart from some boring interludes, mostly of an overall high quality.
Semtex (USA) www.semtexinc.com

As I listen to the sixteen exclusive tracks comprising the Nosordo/Glasvocht split compilation (We're for the) Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed, I struggle to discern some unifying thread. Thinking that a geographical theme might be common to all, I note the presence of Swedish artists but then also discover contributors from North America, Japan, and Germany. I consider that a common stylistic approach, perhaps ambient, might apply, until I encounter a jarring blast of guitar-based post-punk (The Cheese's "Save the Beard"). Eventually I realize there may be no theme beyond the mere fact of label association and a standard of musical quality, and then concomitantly realize that that in itself might be theme enough.
The trip's initial leg is acoustic-flavoured (Ljudbilden & Piloten's placid guitar meditation "Seventeen Curves/Five Lines" and "Elur jario," Do's delicate ambient setting) but then enters more purely electronic territory with Mapstation's (To Rococo Rot's Stefan Schneider) glistening synth romp "For Malmoe" and The Idealist's (Swede Joachim Nordwall) "A Single Pistol Shot," abrasive clinical electronics in a Pan sonic vein. Yasushi Miura's manic techno throwdown "sounds.visual," Fractional's (Pierre Remy of Belgium) breakbeat storm "Dini2na," and Seth Warren and David Dupuis's "Fraying Rain No Sleep," a morphing industrial soundscape of phantom voices, crackling showers, and ghostly poundings, testify to the comp's breadth.
Highlights? Belgium's Dijf Sanders weighs in with a brief but punchy Spanish guitar-driven electronic charmer "Cheerleader Memorial," while shudders, chimes, and flutter ring throughout Osso Bucco's (Gregg Kowalsky) majestic soundscape "Three Days They Slept." Emerging midway through the collection, the lush wavering pools of aqueous haze that constitute Douglas Ferguson's ten-minute "Dawning" are particularly lovely. Recalling Múm's instrumental side, Det Svenska Folket's (a Norway trio) "Sometime Next Year" is also memorable, a lush, rainswept setting of country electronica caressed by the melancholy smears of a melodica and anchored by the snip of a scissors motif and electric guitar.
Like many compilations, (We're for the) Unknown, Unbought & Unbossed is a generous, almost eighty-minute set, making for a long journey with a few stops one regrets having made. The Ordinary Seaman's "Flames," for example, sounds like the sloppy work of an amateurish garage band and doesn't match the comp's overall standard, and Massaccesi's (John Fanning) "Disappointment Descended out of Control" is an ambient noisescape that's headache-inducing (probably its intent). But subtract such moments and this worthwhile collection's a still-generous sixty-eight minutes.
- Textura (USA) www.textura.org