Was talking with friends about how much I like good compilations. It came in discussion about Come Again II, Noise Forest and such, and combined with my personal the best noise albums ever list, including things like Gerogerigegege "Senzuri power up", Genocide Organ "Remember", plus recent weeks listening Hijokaidan "The Neverending story of king of noise" 4xCD box and Merzbow "Metalvelodrome" 4xCD box... what all these things lumped together has in common, is that they are after all, well curated compilations.
Two first mentioned, are various artists compilations. Two in the middle are sold are actual albums, not really as "compilations" per se? Even if Gero CD is collected of tracks from various sessions, various years, some of them formerly released. Remember consisting lots of formerly heard songs, live versions collected from a lot of gigs and still it stands out as one of absolute best, if not THE, Genocide Organ album. Hijokaidan and Merzbow boxes, there were partially formerly releases stuff, partially new, but I never get feeling of them as if they really were compilations. Especially in case of Merzbow, certainly not "best of" type of selection in spirit, even if it may have some of the very best Merzbow! Just the spirit of it, is not like best of collections then to be. It feels more like album, real release, even when being 4 hours massive blast.
This all put together, talk was about how we generally approach albums. Either own works, or as a listener. If there is preference, and if there is routine how work is done. With Grunt, it is probably easy to say, albums are approached like compilations. There are releases that are basically one session, where gear and set-up is pretty much the same for entire release. Let's say "Installation of Blood and Steel" as example as it was just recently reissued. Or split CD with Montage. And so on. Most of the releases, are intentionally, compilations consisting a lot of different sessions. The passion for something so diverse as formerly mentioned various artists compilations always made me think, if ONE artist can pull off the same flow, and put totally different sounding tracks and make it work - how good would be that? Not just track after track repeating as if it would be one continuous session or jam. I know, the flaw and difficulty may be that what if this mess is incoherent and scattered all over the place, and can't even get "in the mood" before piece changes into something totally unlike, not even flowing via transitions, but as abruptly as you were listening V/A cd, and thinking "who is this now?" and reaching for the cover. Album can still work totally as album, and not being "just collection", but totally curated, composed and thought-out piece even if it consists songs from tons of sessions with different gear and spirit.
There certainly is strength in one session. Uniform sound, possible distinctive album feel. You know it is "New Britain". It is not "Total Sex". They won't suddenly throw in some odd track from another session. History of AIDS or some other album where entire album has sense of space, location, physical performance taking place etc. Not something that changes and jumps into totally things. Feeling of something actually taking place now, listening performance, not...collection?
With side projects, I do have vastly more approach to "session". A lot of tapes are one session only. Often even studio-live recordings. Simpler, approach works especially for material that needs to be exactly that.
Any preferences as creator of sound? As listener of sound? Examples of own works where result has benefitted of either approach etc?
