Soul Jazz Vinilo y CD

Review: RECOMMENDED
Post punk and dance music can be perfect bedmates simply because they are so often one and the same thing. Or rather the former is a form of the latter, with post punk's audio iconography frequently involving a rolling approach to rhythms, subtleties given room to shine and a sense of constant build about the atmospherics. All of which are also cornerstones of electronic club sounds, too.

Here then Soul Jazz adds to its extensive and consistently-impressive back catalogue of genre-themed compilations with a collection of tracks that take their lead from electro pop, industrial, punk, techno and more. Featuring a host of contemporary artists, including LA DIYers Automatic, German sonic artists Toresch and Philippines-via-California cult hero Vex Ruffin, it's refreshingly modern proof of how vital this stylistic meeting point is.

Review: Compilations don't come much more authentic or complete than those put together by the legendary London Soul Jazz crew. Cold Wave is a new one that focusses on current electronic artists who "have all been shaped by the early European cold wave artists of the late 70s and early 80s." The first instalment was essential and the second is much the same. Where that one was organ, this one is translucent purple, with big names like Lena Willikens, Job Sifre and Tolouse Low Trax all joining the dost between the past, present and future of this sound.

Review: Something of a cult classic born again - a little like the New Age philosophies that act as foundations for at least some of the work here - Soul Jazz presents the long-out-of-print Space, Energy & Light album. An expansive, often mind-altering, and unarguably far-reaching collection of pioneering work from the world of synthesised music, it spans a staggering three decades so there's an awful lot to experience.

Not just a celebration of forward-thinking tracks, though, what's here represents an historic archive of development in process and production technology. From bold advancements in hardware, to new approaches to software, it's a collection that runs from the lush and still criminally under-heard space-age soul of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, to Laurie Spiegel's science fiction overtures. Tracks which, even if people didn't realise it at the time, presented blueprints for so much of what is happening in electronica today.