Various: Unknown Public 04 - Musical Machinery

The Unknown Public series mostly falls within what Radio 3 would call "new music", a term that's possibly even more vague and apparently useless than "world music", though it seems to stick. They were conceived as a kind of audio magazine, with each issue comprising a selection of new music pieces on a theme, plus a handful of specially commissioned one-minute pieces, plus a 'contemporary classic' to round things off. The writing is important, too, with detailed notes for each track as well as new essays — every bit as meticulous as the electronic music boxed set from a few days ago.

Generally I've been impressed at how good the music on Unknown Public has been, given that much new music is a fairly joyless affair. However, I don't think this is one of the best issues. 24 Track Loop by This Heat, the contemporary classic, is good, but I've also got that on another compilation that I listen to more often.

As of Issue 4, they were still calling Unknown Public a 'creative music quarterly', but I don't think it was ever quarterly. Put it this way: Issue 1 was in 1992 or so; the most recent issue is 16. So it's more like annually.

Entry for this album on Unknown Public site