EMKOG SAMPLER

Emkog Sampler is a various artists compilation album released through Emkog Records in July 2010. The compilation features material by Deluge Grander, Birds and Buildings, All Over Everywhere, and Cerebus Effect. All artists are related as they feature composer/keyboard player/vocalist Dan Britton, who is also the founder of Emkog Records. So this is basically a showcase of of Britton´s dfferent projects.

Some tracks are featured here in the album versions, while others are excerpts, alternate mixes, or early versions of known tracks from the albums of the four Britton related projects. The most unique track featured on Emkog Sampler is the 20:13 minutes long "A Big Blob of Demos and Early Versions of Forthcoming Music" which, as the title of the track also implies, is a lot of different songwriting ideas and sections of compositions, which Britton planned to use on forthcoming recording projects. The tracks by Cerebus Effect and Birds and Buildings are a combination of jazz-rock/fusion and progressive rock, while the material by Deluge Grander and All Over Everywhere are more pure progressive rock. Some tracks feature male- and/or female vocals, while others are instrumental.

Common for all material regardless of which monicker it´s released under, is the high quality of the compositions, the musicianship, and the production values. Britton´s heart obviously beats for 70s progressive rock, jazz-rock/fusion, and analogue recording techniques, and this sampler works well as a way to get aquinted with the different Britton projects. I understand that adding excerpts was a necessary move to get important examples of the various monicker´s work included on the sampler, but it always feels a little wrong to be listening to only an excerpt of a much longer track. That said there is still a lot of high quality material featured here and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.