Ikude was a very random find. As a matter of fact I’m not entirely sure how I found it initially. But rest assured this is one of the best “IDM” compilations I’ve ever heard. I was actually only able to find it for download on Payplay.fm and I purchased it for $8.88. I would have loved a hard copy of it, however I wasn’t able to find it anywhere. If you find one, let me know.
Heres what UK based Shima Records said about their 10th release:
“Celebrating our 10th release we decided to put together a compilation album. 7 months in the making and reaching all 4 corners of the globe in our search. england, canada, greece, australia and germany all representing. featuring some truly beautiful electronic music seamlessly merging from fast idm, thoughful ambient, lush melodies through some cold mechanical cliq, organic electronica to taiwanese hip-hop esq soul searching!
14 tracks featuring parallel worlds, cato six, signalform, riamiwo, tachikoma, self oscillate, naono, melorman, alkin engineering, laputa, [710W3], pascal, nighthaze and seriatim.”
I personally had never heard anything on Shimas roster before, and after hearing this I absolutely plan on exploring their other 9 releases. The thing about this compilation that’s most appealing is that they managed to put together a very broad spectrum of electronic music while still maintaining the atmosphere that you expect from an album categorized under IDM. Theres some lyrical Lo-Fi style tracks, like “I Frank Too Much” by Tachikoma that’s just plain fun to listen too while theres also some harder, almost Acid style stuff like “Carousel” by Pascal, and “Twinkles in My Breathing” by Naono is just a refreshing reminder that people are still making Richard D. James influenced experimental music.
This is one of those albums that you can listen to 5 times a day and not get bored with.
Excellent review. I’ll be checking this out for sure.