Reissue Revelations: Better Living Through Cratedigging

Even the most adventurous and proactively edgy music seekers eventually encounter gray days when new music appreciation skills come to a shaking, shuddering halt. Suddenly, it seems like every lyric worth singing has been sung, all the good guitar hooks in the world have been played into the ground, and there are no more dope beats to drop.

You gaze wistfully at the latest releases from all of your favorite labels and wonder oh, where did the magic go?

If this sudden lack of inspiration isn’t obviously linked to an occasion of great personal tragedy, but is the sort of creeping malaise that occasionally bewitches anyone with a tendency to overinvest in the projected awesomeness of, say, MySpace bands or any act labeled “new rave” (whether in jest or not), the cure could be rather simple.

To fully appreciate the latest and greatest sounds of today, take a break from the New Releases rack and cast those ears of yours back into the past — send yourself on an aural walkabout through the lost musical landscapes of days gone by. You might come back to the future with your enthusiasm for the musical gestalt reborn like a phoenix from the ashes.

Or you might decide to post some permanent stations among the halcyon soundworlds of yesteryear and keep traveling. Whatever you end up doing, in order to get started you’ll need some signposts — good reissue labels and reissue compilations.

Now, reissue novices shouldn’t feel bad about going with the big names out there if they’re not in the habit of going spelunking for the deeply buried finds. Rhino Records, for example, is a venerable label that specializes in amazing reissues of music by both well-known and utterly obscure names in rock, folk, blues, and funk. It’s a great place to start, and an even better home base for returning.

To fully appreciate the latest and greatest sounds of today…send yourself on an aural walkabout through the lost musical landscapes of days gone by.

Meanwhile, folks who are slightly more experienced ought to delve into the mindbendingly awesome catalog of the UK-based Soul Jazz label if they haven’t already. Soul Jazz really upped the ante for producers of reissue compilations when their sub-genre-defining collections of disco-inflected reggae (Hustle! Reggae Disco), Brazilian postpunk acts (The Sexual Life Of The Savages), early NYC hip-hop (Big Apple Rappin’), and a wide range of Studio One reggae/ska/dancehall anthologies began hitting the streets around the turn of the millennium. North Americans have to pay import prices for them, but they’re worth every cent.

But if you’re like me, one of those restless natives who thinks they’ve seen it all, you need to reach a little further. Around five years ago, members of the worldwide cratedigger intelligentsia began sharing the fruits of their used-record-store-bin-sorting labors through reissue labels such as Stones Throw. But during the thundering storm of great funk and soul reissue comps that followed, it never really occurred to me to ask: what about the Latin flavor?

I’d encounter a taste of Joe Bataan here, a bite of Eddie Palmieri there…but it always was a trickle, never a flow, not enough to stoke my appetite for a new groove.

This is where the Spanish reissue outfit Vampisoul came to the rescue. After I stumbled across their catalog a couple months back, I found myself riding a raging river of Latin-drenched sound straight to dancefloor bliss — from salsa to soul, from groovy jazz to heavy psychedelic funk.

My recommendation? Get your party started with their adorably titled comp Hey Everybody…I Gotta New Dance: 23 Soul Funk Latin Torpedoes Gonna Rock Your Boat, and rattle your timbales to tracks by the Peruvian psychedelic funk-rock band Traffic Sound (“Inca Snow”), the Uruguayan candombe-rock group Totem (“No Me Molestes”), and the Lat-Teens (“Marry Wanna”), a classic NYC-based Latin-soul act.

From there, branch out and try some of Vampisoul’s other offerings, which also include full album reissues.

Back in the States, the award for “Classiest Reissue Label of Cratedigger Provenance” would have to go to the Numero Group, which has been releasing a series of reissue comps that are as beautifully arranged and packaged as they are critically acclaimed.

They’re best known for their “Eccentric Soul” series, which represents the cream of long-gone regional funk and soul labels like Big Mack (Detroit), Twinight (Chicago), and Deep City (Florida). But their deviations from that path have been just as notable — excursions into Belize-based funk, obscure SoCal female folksingers of the ’70s, and (my personal favorite) Yellow Pills: Prefill, a magnificent 2xCD comp of forgotten American power pop, perfect for fans of contemporary power-pop-inflected acts like Pernice Brothers, Portastatic, The Sounds, and The Fratellis.

Continuing in that direction, if you’re a total power pop and/or post-punk obsessive (or just want to borrow the record collection of someone who is), the amazing multi-disc comps of Chuck Warner’s Hyped2Death label are a must-have. Originally released by Warner as bootleg CD-Rs back late ’90s, they focus on extremely rare regional vinyl and cassette-tape releases from the US and the UK that may not have been heard by more than a few hundred people.

Now Warner’s putting out new, remastered-on-CD compilations that you can rip onto your iPod and thrill as they hold their own in random shuffle against the comparatively overblown likes of Interpol and The Killers, fully integrating with the familiar noise of present day pop.

– Matt Ness

Matt Ness is the man behind “Moebius Rex,” one of the most widely respected music blogs running, and is a regular columnist for ALARM Magazine. Visit Moebius Rex at: moebius-rex.livejournal.com.