It's a compilation of new music.  It's free, and it is downloadable right now.  So unless you have really narrow tastes, or are really tight with your download limit, getting hold of the new Phantom Channel release – the second part of their compilation series – is a bit of a no-brainer.  Grab the new Silent Ballet compilation first though. 

So – a free download.  It's available to anyone who wants it – so why bother reviewing it?  Well, there are two points to consider.  In this age of ours where pretty much any album made can be hunted down in digital form and stuck on a hard-drive, there is often the case that one can overload on music and end up with tons of unheard – and, more likely, unloved – music files.  Whilethe age of the MP3 has seen the opportunity to hear music widen spectacularly, it has also arguably reduced our connectivity to what we listen to.  In short, music has become too disposable. 

I'm not about to get misty-eyed and look back at the days of gatefold LPs because vinyl isn't a perfect medium either – there's the whole getting up and turning over to side 2 for one thing and vinyl is both fragile and heavy so it makes transportation awkward at the best of times.  And back then free label samplers were often floppy 7" singles attached to magazines which scarcely played – moving to cassettes was seen as progress which gives an indication of sound quality.  But when it comes to free music there's almost always an aura of disposability around it (in short: if it's so good, why are they giving it away?).  Grabbing any free file that you can find is ultimately reductive – so don't be indiscriminate and try to sort out the good stuff before shoving it on your hard-drive.

The second argument to consider is that this collection isn't merely a compilation of tracks.  It is – at least in the eyes of Phantom Channel – a carefully assembled and sequenced collection of tracks.  In the spirit of the David Toop-curated compilations on Virgin, many of the tracks are segued into each other to create a complete listening experience.   Given this is an MP3 collection, presenting it as a total work rather than a bunch of tracks seems especially brave – and not always successful, particularly because my poor old iPod can't cope with gapless playback and sticks a pause in when none is intended.  The end result as a mobile listener left me vacillating between being disconcerted and annoyed. 

Even overlooking playback issues, the segueing is not wholly successful.  It worked on Part 1 because that was mainly dedicated to long ambient pieces that could drift in and out of each other easily enough – and if you liked one track it is a fairly safe bet you won't be repulsed by any of the others.  Part 2 is more varied and therefore more problematic – it's less likely that anyone is going to like all of it.  A bit of end-user input – deleting the duff tracks, re-ordering the survivors, sticking a couple on a playlist later on – may not be what the Phantom Channel guys had in mind, but it's what listeners are used to now.   Maybe it will encourage listeners to stick with all the tracks all the way through, but my gut instinct is that people will just edit the album and live with abrupt starts and stops.

Finally, to the music itself.  The opening triumvirate are pretty unremarkable, with the opening track, "No.3" by Loose Lips Sink Ships, failing to live up to the expectations of "breathtaking, exciting and creatively dextrous artists" that Phantom Channel gush about.  "No.3" is a bog-standard instrumental piece taken down a notch or two by Loose Lips' inclusion of the ramblings a coke-addled Bowie fan.  Does it enlighten? No.  Does it improve from repeated listens? Nope.  Fortunately, things pick up with Mikkel Lentz's "European Clarinet" a track that does exactly what it says on the tin and which is reminiscent of Djivan Gasparyan's evocative albums on the All Saints label.

Lentz's track ushers in a sequence of pleasant and unassuming pieces, including Chris Tenz's acoustic guitar meditation and Unflower's lengthy eponymous ambient work.  The latter acts as a palette-cleanser for the final tracks that are among the best on the album.  Icon x6's "Substance" is a surprising tangent being a bucolic folk song which, with its chattering birds in the background, is the offspring of Pink Floyd's "Grantchester Meadows" and "Cirrus Minor".  It flows smoothly into Elisa Luu's "Slow Bass Flute" which is built around slow pulsing chords of analogue synths and really is rather lovely.   Konntinent's "Anurik 2" is more of the same with an acoustic guitar and recorder rippling the serene landscape.  This sequence proves that Phantom Channel guys know what they are doing when it comes to putting a compilation together, and it would be rather churlish to want to mess with the closing five tracks. 

It is almost certain, however, that you will want to drag Eerie Days' "Conscience" out of sequence and put it into a playlist.  The Norwegian duo conjure up a dreamy pop gem that is part-shoegaze, part-Sigur Rós and part-Sarah Polley on the soundtrack of The Sweet Hereafter.  With only a couple of tracks to their name, all credit is due to Phantom Channel for finding them early and getting the word out there. 

It's worth downloading then.  Whether or not Phantom Channel are presenting the artists in the best manner on this release is open to some debate: personally, on a compilation in this format, I would rather have stand-alone tracks but I appreciate the concept behind it – to encourage listeners to listen to the compilation as an album rather than a collection of individual tracks – and the sequencing works well, with most tracks enjoying sympathetic surroundings.  To these ears, it's the very opposite of front-loaded, and may put some casual browsers off early doors, but that's a relatively minor quibble.  Phantom Channel point out that the music industry is in crisis on their website – well, the industry might be, but on the evidence here with the likes of these guys working as curators, the music side is in safe hands.

-Jeremy Bye