the stolen compilation was ranked number 7 in the independent's box office hit list (compiled by pure groove)

"a whole record of unearthed new UK talent, taking in the weird and the wonderful"

independent on sunday (19th feb)

PURE GROOVE'S ALBUM OF THE MONTH! (jan 2006)
from the label that brought us the brilliant pete and the pirates mini album
comes a mammoth complilation of wierd and wonderful delights, it comes in
beautiful packaging and is destined to be pretty limited.

PURE GROOVE

Fantastic compilation on the rising label Stolen Recordings. The CD contains home recordings, no-fi recordings and other such gems. All of the bands and tracks have come to them via a monthly gig that they put on at the Spitz (in London). Stolen Recordings are at the centre of the current underground scene, a scene that thankfully shys away from gaining mega-bucks record deals, and instead just concentrates on making music for itself. Glorious lo-fi/no-fi music, from people who sound like they actually love what they're doing!!

piccadilly records

....Because it isn't about how smooth and polished you can seem, how professional, how ready-for-prime-time your players might be. And that pisses some people off, because that means great art isn't necessarily something you can hone or practice at or conjure up out of nowhere- it's more random, more magical than that. stolen recordings understand perfectly; the london based label describes itself as 'an independant label set up to release the fractured and melodic' which is about as acurate and evocative a mission statement as any imprint should compose. Their first compliation - a hand decorated, homely thing limited to 500 copies and available from thier website - is pieced together from demo tapes, live tracks and other such seeming - ephemera from the contributors. Listening to the likes of philosophie queen (inspired, subterranean and curious lo-fi noise) and shimmy rivers and and canal (erudite and writhing, dramatic pop) and the scattered genius of the mean streaks are all shadowy,overgrown paths worth following.

stevie chick - loose lips sink ships

the third release from stolen recordings comes in the form of this 21 track compilation that is limited to 500 hand stamped and numbered copies. like the candy and pete and the pirates releases - the music and the packaging are of the highest order. i swear, you will not find a better english compilation of unknown bands. it features manic cough, the mighty 'ghost club', wet dog, bender,candy, pete and the pirates, the diamond family archive, tren brothers, simon breed and much, much more.

rough trade

This compilation, it is fair to say, is not for those who like their music with the rough edges taken off. Comprising mostly of demos and home recordings it presents music in its most natural form, before pro tools has got its sterile plastic coated hands on it and sucked out all the life and energy. Ok, so the quality suffers in some cases, but the lo-fi aesthetic present throughout this selection makes for a cohesive album that pulls sometimes disparate elements together through a set of common values. It's not going to be to everyone's taste, but their are enough raw nuggets here, like the filthy garage rock of Ghost Club, and Madam's sultry 'Call America' to make this limited edition release well worth seeking out.

maps magazine

Having made tentative and somewhat fatiguing steps to define the spirit
of indie of late (prompted possibly by the early encroachment of senility)
, I'm reminded of the genuinely spontaneous creative thrill and abundance
of talent on the underground scene by a fantastically lo-fi compilation
release by London independent label Stolen Recordings. Being a (self-denying)
provincial gentleman somewhat at the mercy of alternative broadcasting,
for me the twenty-two tracks on show go some way toward making up for
the devastating lack of diversity in such spheres that was our inevitable lot
after the passing of John Peel.

Inspired by a monthly free night they put on at the Spitz, Stolen has gathered
together an impressive collection of bands that ranges geographically from New
Zealand to Slough and artistically from electronica to psychedelia, halting at
a wide array of stops in between. Beginning with the more raucous
clientele showcased, Slough's Manic Cough can be said to epitomise the LP's
impressive raw irreverence, a certain brashly manicured style crow-barring
the door open to a new generation of the disaffectedly creative. Glam-rockers
in the most outlandish sense (promo pictures show them regaling on stage in a
sartorial range from angel wings to sailor-chic), the Cough are a ramshackle
four-girl, one-boy fivesome in the best tradition of riot grrl indie, drawing early
recognition as yet another new Slits/Le Tigre/Raincoats with a careless glee that
defies more precise comparison. Illumined by the attitude-dripping squall-drawl
of lead singer Annie, their track 'There U R' writhes and struts like a
distinguished riposte from an urban gutter, forming a foremost shape in this
kaleidoscopic netherworld of undiscovered delights.

The compilation functions on a healthy contrast of genre throughout, and at
the other end of the raawk scale New Zealanders Ghost Club contribute a more
straight-ahead number in the form of 'Sea Shaped Stone' with a still
sparklingly-alternative zest, singer David Mitchell bellowing the impassioned
lyrics with a lust in super synch with the resounding guitars. Sporting a
freewheeling, Marx Brothers-type attitude, various members of the bands here
happen to turn out for one another. Mitchell, in another guise, is also
guitarist for The Mean Streaks, who's 'Mani's Gate' is a rigorous,
testosterone-fuelled monument of heavy rock, his Ghost Club partner Denise
Roughan ­ in a great example of acommunity of genuine musical diversenes
s ­ doubling up as a member of one of the compilation's archly stylish curiosities,
Lishka. Any indie compilation would of course be fatally incomplete without a
dose of the elegantly enigmatic, and Roughan's second band fill this billing
superbly along with minimalist electronic duo Asja Auf Capri, and the frankly
amazing Hot Silk Pockets.

Lishka's Eva Holeckova comes from the golden baroque city of Prague,
and she infuses into her band's original post-punk/folk musings a
straight-talking, sad exotica that renders their sound a stunningly deadbeat
statement of cool. Their track 'Whoever Bought Me Here Has to Take Me Home'
is a brilliantly convincing exclamation of indie shimmer at once distantly
fashionable and emotionally evocative. Lishka seem well equipped to attract all
the correct attentions in perversely esoteric corners of the music press,
while for German/American duo Asja Auf Capri such beady-eyed acclaim is
already old hat. The Capri are a veritable labyrinth of intoxicating complexities
that have had the supra-intelligentsia foaming at the mouth for some time now.
Named after Marxist theatre director Asja Lacis, they sport a particularly difficult
though rewarding brand of electronic minimalism, singer Anja Kirschner's
deadbeat German intonations stalking her partner's dissolute rhythms to
create a sound as darkly enchanting and intellectually satisfying as anything
you'd expect from a devoutly underground Ladytron. Amidst this icily subdued
and acutely cerebral atmosphere, the anarchic posturing of The Hot Silk Pockets
comes like a bucket of cold water over the head followed swiftly by a hand-job
from an Amsterdam whore. The Pockets' 'Late Friday Night' is a raucous whirl of
brilliant, "angular" guitar spurts decorated by impressive female wailing and
swearing of appropriate direction reminiscent of Peel favourites Lolita Storm.

Another great thing about this collection is that, rather than representing a
horrid equivalent of daytime Radio 2 indie-rock, its middle ground is a fertile
patch of meandering lushness in which numerous bands come graciously to
the fore. Machine Translations' 'Quarantine' is a wistfully ebbing hymn that's
chiming guitar riff lifts to heights of what can only be described as filmic grace.
Not much information is available on many of the bands here and of Machine
Translations only the secondary detail that their "Australian pop luminary J.
Walker" also part-produced the new album of Australian experimental musician
Matt Nicholson, considered below. Impeccably anonymous are The Kittens and
Tap Tap. The Kittens' 'Every Analogue Recording for Itself' evokes Blur at their
lo-fi, humble/sad best, the track floating off into an ethereal realm of pure
musical light, while Tap Tap's 'She Doesn't Belong to Me' is a steadily charming
and chugging whirl of low-key melody and coaxing vocals. The Diamond Family
Archive earn similar respect with a kindred kind of intricate earnestness. The
way the Archive's instrumentation merges, rises and falls is particularly brilliant
in this, for the most part, raw-edged company, their 'Tuesday's Plan' a
stunningly romantic epic of high-art musical subtlety.

Another artist who can proudly be named among the distinguished middle
ground of this record is Simon Breed. Breed and his band (including on guitar
The Mean Streaks' Matthew Wolverine) are gaining increasing popularity on the
London circuit, having recently played packed-out shows at the Water Rats and
toured Scandinavia with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Their 'My Eyes Have
Seen the Glory of Your Face' is illumined by iridescent shafts of Wolverine's
electric guitar to form a sprawling and elegiac epic of compositional vision to
absolutely die for. As if all this earnestness could ever get too much for you
though, parity is intermittently restored by another band with Nick
Cave-dwellings, a London trio only conceivable in silhouette, and a
self-proclaimed bird charmer. Welcome, the avant-garde.

Conspicuous by their other occupations, Bender are the project of
photographer and publisher Steve Gullick, artist/filmmaker Geraldine Swayne
and actual member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds James Johnston. Their
debut album in 2004 was released on the Loose Lips Sink Ships label and their
track here, 'Before You Die', recorded on a two track tape, drifts like a
dislocated dream yet in its sum-total of disfigured viola, accordion and ghostly
vocals, retains something of a tangible form. Bender's overtly experimental
ethos is shared by several of their compilation fellows, who make up a kind of
nucleus of the wickedly obstinate, and the standard of incomprehensible is, I'd
say, overall pretty good. Unmistakeably among this group are the
nomenclaturally-challenging Shimmy Rivers and and Canal. Turning Bender's
innovative spirit on its belly and tickling it for laughs, their 'The Winking
Cowboy' is like a piece of aural art from the alleys of Topcat, Shimmy leading
with a squeal from a dustbin and the Canal providing an off-kilter backing that
strays into the lunatically life-affirming. The Canal, or possibly Shimmy on his
own (whichever is allowed into the building) have a bi-weekly show on
Resonance FM that is possibly worth tuning into. Of a more psychedelic
though still straightjacket-stretching hue, London animation artist David Janes (aka
­ Oxen of the Sun) enchants as much as he alarms with a fragmented melodic
paean to himself as the 'King of the Birds'. '. Birds' breezes along with an
inebriated, beguilingly disincentive strut, and anyone doubting the authenticity
of its author's insanity should be nudged towards his website where his talent
for the humorously odd is amply represented.

Particularly impressive here are more clean-cut, though no less creatively
purring slices from Sukie Smith and Stolen's in-house band, Candy. Smith,
otherwise known as Madam, is in the process of providing the soundtrack
album for upcoming British indie flick Hush Your Mouth ("an urban ghost story"),
and 'Call America', taken from her debut EP, is a fantastic, sultry slice of
quintessentially English poise that denotes a major talent in the noble art of
smoky chanteusery. Self-described as "music for outlaws, cowboys and
glamour girls who won't give up on their idea of perfect love," 'Call America'
sees Smith's band provide a timelessly atmospheric backdrop to her
crystal-clear vocals that creates a truly vintage emotion. In the menagerie
of genres embarked upon here, an alt-classical number is one of few we're
yet to encounter. Candy's 'A Breath' comes across like Bach with a graffiti
organ ­ a funereal drone of eerie and distinguished atmosphere helped throuhg
by the nameless female singer, who's soulfully fragile voice is the epitome of
the small scale grace of the whole album.

Although exclusively indie in selection, Stolen's policy here seems to evoke a
Peel-esque utter lack of a constricting ethos to define, choose and be chosen.
If the music on this LP has one thing in common it's a unique freshness; that
pure artistic miracle brought about by the kind of freedom that always informs
a healthy attitude. In its empathy for the sheer range of expressions that come
under the indie umbrella, impassioned by its ethos, this LP puts many current
mainstream-alternative bastions in a new light ­ with a swagger and a smile
, spray-painting their hallowed walls with a brilliant discomfort.

tangents review by neil jones

Hello from Chicago..
Let's see if those FuCk'rz at PitchFork Media can get
their boney- azz fingerz on your compilation. They
won't know what hit them.
Simply stunning.
I've been playing it in my car deck for weeks...

Your Chicago Uber Fan, Alex

"....the cascading harmonies evoking a summer day playing with friends after school on Wake Up by Pete and the Pirates have genuine quality and beauty. Essentially, you can accept the odd bad 'un on this sampler because this is slice of real, honest music which has not been sandblasted into mediocrity by some sharp suited company shark. Lets hope in future that Stolen Recordings continue to develop and deliver their musical stable of curious musical characters."

Andrew Laughlin- subba cultcha