Since 1935, people have spent many a fine evening playing Monopoly, that “Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game.” Theses have been presented on winning strategies in Monopoly (tip: choose the thimble), but the strategy for having an enjoyable game is simple: maintain good relationships with your opponents, build your reputation, and be generous. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but bankrupting and humiliating your friends while acting like a power-hungry addict or a cackling horse’s ass isn’t good business.
The same thing can be said about real life, or at least our hallucinatory version of it: the music industry. We know that hoarding everything, being too competitive, and treating customers like crap leads to things like bankruptcy or maybe even blood-shedding, which is why the labels that work toward consumer happiness and do things the right way most often win. While Brooklyn’s Very Special Recordings are new-ish magnates in the real-estate-of-the-ears game, they’ve done it proper, issuing cassettes crafted with care while representing a vast cross-section of Brooklyn-bred sounds.
To that end, a compilation with tracks culled from its first 13 releases, Brooklyn Mixtape, will be released November 17 on tape and as a download. Reflecting Brooklyn’s frenetic underground scene, the collection genre-hops from Beninghove’s Hangmen’s Zep-trip-tacular “Zohove” to The Eargoggle’s precocious pulsing “You’re Feeling Like” to Sheen Marina’s aptly-titled “Splice” (which itself unites a half-dozen different sounds into one song).
Today, we have the pleasure of premiering the videos for Ryan Dugre’s softened strummer “Mute Swan” and Rick Parker and Li Diaguo’s cello ‘n’ trombone interplay “make way for the mane of spit and nails.” These videos, embedded below, should give any first-time VSR guest a good idea where the label’s headspace is at.
Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. But DO get over to the VSR’s Bandcamp site and pre-order Brooklyn Mixtape. Money spent on music is better than money spent on frivolous things like rent or railroads, Rich Aunt and Uncle Moneybags.
Brooklyn Mixtape tracklist:
Side A:
01. Sheen Marina - “Swipe”
02. Green and Glass - “Night Runner”
03. Ryan Dugre - “Mute Swan”
04. The Eargoggle - “Picking My Bones”
05. Dustin Carlson - “Shakes” (edit)
06. Li Daiguo and Rick Parker - “make way for the mane of spit and nails”
07. Beninghove’s Hangmen - “Zohove”
Side B:
01. People’s Champs - “American Dreamers”
02. Super Hi-Fi - “Space Needle (Victor Rice Dub #5)”
03. The Eargoggle - “You’re Feeling Like”
04. Ryan Dugre - “Elliot”
05. Xander Naylor - “Appearances”
06. Council of Eyeforms - “Planet Earth” (excerpt)
07. The Eargoggle - “Hero”