No Better No Worse (Vol 1)

As usual, Lambkin immediately takes the listener out of his comfort zone, making it very clear that this new (huge) digital compilation requires active compromise in order to appreciate what he's offering. That he is one of the greatest figures acting in field recording and sound collage for some time now is pretty well known, but as was the case with some of his best acknowledged solo releases up to date, the inevitable contrast between the mundane used as the core of his oeuvre and the 'otherworldly' (to be comprehended as both aesthetically trascendent and conceptually ambitious) is what truly baffles in this release. Roughly divided in two major parts, the first volume of No Better, No Worse values a unique sense of solitude via Lambkin's one-of-a-kind musique concrete procedure, an assemblage of down-to-earth everyday-captured sounds turned into the most surreal and haunting of aural poetics. While the second half may not display absolutely shocking material for anyone familiar with Lambkin's previous works, the challenging and wonderfully structured experience kickstarted by the fantastic (and elusively-titled) 43-min "Summer Tape Work" defines one of the year's true highlights in music... and artistic material of similar nature.