About a million posts ago, Lou over at Salad Fork was putting together a kick ass cassette compilation whose proceeds were going towards the relief effort in Haiti. Now, Mr. Altruism is back with another made-with-love CD-R comp., this time benefiting Action Against Hunger whose ambitious, yet hopefully achievable, aim is to end world hunger. Unfortunately, while this post sat dormant in the queue, the physical release — featuring handmade covers depicting an attendee from the Last Supper (seen above) — has been sold out, however, you can still download the digital versions of the compilation from Salad Fork, and, last time I checked, Action Against Hunger still accepts online donations (hint, hint).
The project is broken down into two sets: Disk I is composed of Salad Fork exclusive tracks sent in from the artists themselves while Disk II is some of Lou’s favorite tracks from the past couple of months. No doubt, the former CD-R intrigued me the most (I’ve covered some of the tracks from Disk II already, and have heard most), and I can safely say that it does not disappoint!
The two songs that hit me the most from the “exclusives” disk were Omnivore’s “Take It All” and “Running Man” by Fossil Cities. Omnivore is the synth-heavy project of Glenna Van Nostrand and “Company” (one of which is Paul Morse from PPALMM). The electronic elements of Glenna’s music are entrancing to say the least — hypnotizing you with every pulsating cresendoed phrase — while her harmonizing, possibly pitch-shifted, vocals are reminiscent of what Karin Dreijer Andersson does. I fell in love with this track instantly, and liked it so much that I included it in my latest mix. With nothing more than simple guitar strumming and constant percussion crackles on “Running Man”, Fossil Cities relies heavily on songwriting and the casual, yet powerful, vocals of their lead singer. An arrangement that very easily could go sour fast, the group exploits the simplicity well, making a solid track that I’m sure to come back to time-and-time again.
You can listen to the two songs below and, for a full download of both disks, head on over to Salad Fork. Also, Lou still has a handful of Mixtapes for Haiti for sale, which you can purchase from his blog store here. Remember, with these compilations everything is going towards a good cause!
