AA.VV.
Il Juke-Box del Diavolo

THE REVIEW

In times when the so-called "indies" enjoyed daring, light-years away from the specter of file sharing, the Italian label Fridge released this interesting compilation. The aim of the operation was to unite in a single disc Italian and foreign artists who had, in one way or another, dabbled in electronic music.
It goes without saying that there are various musical genres within, but this certainly does not diminish the value of this collection compiled by Mauro Teo Teardo, a stoic standard-bearer of the Italian industrial scene.
The cover, clearly inspired by Pulp, depicts a young man who, under the yoke of a mutant fly, sadistically tortures terrified and cyclopean little blue pigs.

With the exception of a (rightly?) nonsensical intro, we find as the second track the Here, an electronic project by Teardo himself with J.F. Coleman (Cop Shot Cop) featuring Lydia Lunch, the priestess of New York's No Wave, who gives her blessing to the project. "Drunken thoughts" is undoubtedly among the best tracks on this CD and moves between trip-hop and industrial, with a nice abstract-jazz flavored beat appropriately hyper-compressed that counters Lunch's voice.
Immediately after, we find Coleman's own Phylr who gives us his take from the drum & bass planet, while the Texans Chrome Cranks (from the ashes of Pussy Galore) slow down the tempo and serve us a dish of noisy low fidelity tainted by tape delay.
The Meathead, Teo Teardo’s industrial-rock band, can't be missing, with a nice Techno Metal remix.
With Homo Vibro, we return once again to trip-hop/downtempo environments, and we are intrigued by the title of this long instrumental suite "Birdie does the watching".
And we arrive at the PigFace, the ambitious project of Martin Atkins (ex-Pil) founder of Invisible Records. "Sick as Fuck" is a high amperage funk, a mid-tempo drum, slapped basses here and there, and voices treated with the sampler. This remix by Michael Lawder is very old school, and therefore, it pleases.
"Ich habe..." by the Milanese Debord closes the dance with dignity.

For the sake of accuracy, it should also be noted the presence of a beautifully delirious outro, a dozen fake tracks, and a ghost track to fill in a bit...
Upon closer inspection, the entire playlist as it is sequenced could easily be the ideal soundtrack for an endless torture session.
Paraphrasing the series of compilations regularly released by Fridge (AA.VV. Soniche Avventure), this sampler could have easily been baptized "Soniche Torture", but given the uniqueness (in every sense) of the operation, it fits well just as it is.