Various

If it's been five years of failure for Discreet, who mark their first half-decade with a ten track compilation of new or unreleased music by label alumni Facit, Eftergift, Demeters Döttrar, Sewer Election, Juho Toivonen, Leda, Shadow Pattern, Livskraft, Arv & Miljö and Franciska, then they've certainly been failing upwards. It's not so much a disingenuous title as one that speaks to the we'll-do-what-we-want approach of what has become, in a fairly short space of time, not just a Gothenburg instutution, but a pillar of the international underground. The majority of the artists featured here are local and pan-generational, which is remarkable in itself (and even in the digital age, I believe 'scenes' do remain seductive propositions), but a wider net has also been cast to other parts of Scandinavia and Canada, and they all sound at home in each other's company. This is not commercial music by any stretch of the imagination, and for some, nor will it be particularly accessible. Yet it is uniquely compelling, a collective re-establishing of the intersecting boundaries of post-industrial, (neo)folk, drone, lo-fi, noise and home-made electronic tape music that might still have happened if Discreet weren't there to endorse, but I doubt it. If you've even half an ear for wonk, murk, dissonance or outsiderdom, this is nothing less than essential. Discourteous to pick out any specific highlights, though the presence of young guns like Juho Toivonen and Franciska is evidence that there might be good few years of failure in front of Discreet.