I do not believe that I knew the label and I certainly missed the first issue of this interesting compilation, but when I saw it in the Ant-Zen mailorder list with names such as Dogpop, M.A.O. and Tonal Y Nagual, I expected it to be an UMB Kollektiv compilation. Indeed Empty Room Exploration appears to be an IMB sublabel. Other artists include Echo West, Deutsch Nepal, Gerechtigkeitsliga and a range of artists I did not know. I thought it would not be such a bad buy and it sure was not! The music is mostly analogue-sounding, experimental, soft industrial. The compilation reminds me of another that I always forget I have “Icy Breath On Burning Flesh” (2010). The sound of that compilation is summorised as “post-industrial”, which is a good description of both that compilation and “Super MAO Land”. Sometimes the sound is more noisy, sometimes more industrial, sometimes more minimal wave, but overal the compilation is nicely weird and coherent.
There are only 75 copies available, so you might have to be quick.
Link: Empty Room Exploration / UMB Kollektiv
