SELECTED

Sub-genre: Zeuhl (good fit)
For Fans of: Koenjihyakkei, Ruins, Magma
Vocal Style: Multiple female (occasional male), vocals are not lyrical, just melodic syllables to emphasize the vocals as instruments
Guitar Style: Varying styles from distorted electric to sweet, full sounding acoustic
Keyboard Style: none
Percussion Style: Dual percussion, rock set, trap drum, congas, bongos and vibes. Most selections have a heavy urgency to the percussion
Bass Style: Upright electric picked and occasionally beaten or bowed
Other Instruments: Electric violin played with ethereal Eastern influenced overtones

Summary: This is a compilation of Bondage Fruit 5 songs from their first 3 albums. The comp was released to support the band's 1999 US tour. Pangea Records had BF play at their 1999 International Progressive Music Festival. The music is a good representation of their brand of Japanese-style Zeuhl. Included is their early frantic masterwork, Kinzuko No Taiji. The only drawback musically is the inclusion of the 28 minute long Recit. They would have probably been better served to include 3 other shorter songs in the same time frame, as Recit is one of the few songs that really drags.

The real unfortunate aspect of this release is that it is burned onto CD-R media. The blue surface of the play side is unmistakable. When we brought the disk home, it would not play in our DVD player and one older CD player (certainly not as big a deal now as almost all players support burned media). This is certainly not a reflection on the band, but makes Pangea's release look rushed and very "bush league".

Final Score: If somebody was really not interested in having a "real" Bondage Fruit album in their collection (why would anybody not want that?) this would actually be a decent cross section of their early material to have. Unfortunately the media just makes this a really unattractive release. I must recommend just diving into their albums and avoiding this. 3 stars for the music + 1 star for the disc = 2 stars.