Various Artists - Sundays in the Park (Album)
Ministry Of Sound, purveyors of most things bass-heavy and annoying, are actually really good at making chill-out mixes. So good, in fact, that their parent company Universal is starting to feel their electronic offspring nipping at their heels, and in collaboration with ABC, have dropped this 2CD relaxo-maxo on us. The only problem is that whoever was in charge of this project obviously didn't realise that half the success of Ministry's effort is that they blend seemingly incongruous tracks together using downtempo re-fixes and other technology.
This seemingly well-entrenched mode of expression has obviously eluded the folk in charge of this here compilation. These are people who put Cut Copy and Feist back to back, with no contextual changes. It's jarring at the best of times, and unless you already know all of these tracks or need something to distract you driving, putting this on at a Sunday Afternoon shindig would likely garner you some very strange looks from people.
The biggest insult to a music reviewer (or indeed anyone's) intelligence is when a major label flogs you the same thing you heard a year ago and believe that their new packaging will convince you that the song isn't commercially exhausted. It's easy to strike the repeat offenders out; nobody needs to hear Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, Lisa Mitchell's Neapolitan Dreams (surely she's recorded something else?) or Peter, Bjorn & John's insufferable Young Folks ever again. The biggest successes are in the songs that don't really fit at all, sweet pop ditties from The Basics and The Panics, as well as a surprise inclusion for Moloko.
But putting this up against Sigur Ros and Zero 7 is an exercise in poor judgment; and the makers of this compilation are swimming in it. Trying to decide whether to put the guitar driven Sarah Blasko, Josh Pyke and The Audreys on the same CD as The Presets and Sparkadia should not be so difficult. If they stopped crawling through their combined back catalogues and started satisfying whatever godforsaken brief they were given, maybe we'd have something decent on our hands. For the moment, rip the second half to your iPod and ditch the first; it's nothing you haven't been hearing on Triple J ad nauseum for months now.
