Various Artists - From Brussels With Love (2020) - Les Disques du Crepuscule (various formats)
1980 saw something of a renaissance in UK independent music. The likes of Postcard, Rough Trade, Mute and Fast were busy issuing genre-bending singles and setting a precedent for the decade ahead. Meanwhile, Manchester's Factory Records had inspired two Belgian journalists Michel Duval and Annik Honore to found a stylish record-label in Belgium's gritty capital. Replete with an in-house designer Benoit Hennebert and a roster derived from local post-punk scenes and Factory itself, Les Disques du Crepuscule set out its considerably weighty stall with an inaugural double LP/ single cassette compilation fittingly entitled From Brussels With Love.
Designed to be a sampler for the label's upcoming release schedule, both the original 1980 release and this expanded FBWL boast early works by pop starlets such as Thomas Dolby (the beautifully reflective Airwaves is worth the admission alone) and John Foxx (Jingles a go-go), edgy avant-gardists Der Plan, Wire's BC Gilbert and Graham Lewis and Repetition and a tour-de-force roll-call of minimalists such as Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars, as well as artsy interviews with Brian Eno and Jeanne Moreau. The newly-updated vinyl and cassette formats carry the original tracklisting and a healthy attention to detail with the accompanying booklets and sleevenotes.
But it's the 'earbook' double CD package that provides the solid upgrade this landmark release deserves. You get the original tracklisting on disc one, a supplementary array of related artists on disc two - Durutti Column, Bill Nelson, The Names and Josef K among others - and a superb and informative 60-page hardback book with essays, images of posters, flyers, artists and key players in the early history of the label. There's a discography with all-important thumbnails of sleeve artwork that demonstrate just how stylish Crepuscule was and still is to this day.
But it's all about the music and the many highlights include Kevin Hewick's perennial Haystack recorded with New Order, live tracks by a fledgling A Certain Ratio, a trilogy of elegiac Durutti Column vignettes and the tech stomp of John Foxx's Mr No.
Just when you thought "they don't make them like this anymore", it turns out they just did.
You can purchase the various formats and bundles right here