#nino raviolette

[mywifeleftme]

279: V/A // Sky Girl

Sky Girl Various Artists 2013/2016 (reissue), Not on label/Efficient Space (Bandcamp)

Funny little compilation here, assembled from various ‘60s to ‘90s private and art presses by two French DJs. Of course, clearance issues come for us all—the original independently-released 2013 CD version had a rather different track list than this 2016 vinyl reissue on the Australian Efficient Space label. Still, in either formulation Sky Girl has a wonderful melancholy sweetness, mapping an emotional Venn diagram between C86 indie, Vashti Bunyan, Arthur Russell, bedroom R&B, gawky synth pop, and beyond. Being largely* from the private press realm, the originals of these recordings are nearly all painfully pricey: Warfield Spillers’ “Daddy’s Little Girl” single crosses the soul ballad with Beat Happening lo-fi and will cost you $800; an original of the Rising Storm LP that contains “Frozen Laughter,” an impossibly delicate psychedelic idyll, will run you a cool six grand or so. Unlike a lot of comps that focus on this market, this isn’t really weirdo stuff. These people are for the most part fairly talented and seemingly sane people who are trying their best to make good music that will make the listener feel something. Some of them probably could’ve gotten a bite at the record industry apple with a little more luck, but a lot of the songs the compilers have selected have a private vibe that seems endemic to their nature, like overhearing something intended for a lover or a diary. Collectors pay a premium for that sense, like some Japanese novel about lovers who never meet but distantly pine in a waft of mutual déjà vu (this I guess is the plot of Le double vie de Véronique also, and “Ana Ng”).

I would’ve loved if the compilation’s liners had offered more of the stories of these recordings, though it’s admittedly fun to Do My Own Research sometimes. (And the reissue cover is lamentably drab.) The 2016 version of the comp is readily available on streaming platforms for those who wish to sample—I especially recommend prolific indie cassette artist Linda Smith’s “I So Liked Spring,” Australian minimal wave obscurity Karen Marks’ “Cold Café,” and the robotic puberty-angst groover “Feeling Sheepish” by Some of My Best Friends Are Canadians. But Sky Girl really is more than the sum of its parts, as any good mixtape should be.

279/365

* The CD version did open with a track by the Haruomi Hosono-affiliated duo Testpattern that was well-distributed, in Japan at least.