Various - Two Years of Spring

Jamie Burke's more than decent NTS show (now reactivated after a brief pause it seems?) expands to a record label with this eleven track cassette compilation. WOE acolytes (of which there's a least possibly one) will be most pleased - it reads much like scrolling through our Instagram feed the past year or so. Brannten Schnure, Troth, Circle Bros, Ubaldo, The Sprigs, Nein Rodere++. And there's a few lesser spotted names in the mix, of particular note Delphine Dora's, well, delphic DIY fumblings and the glistening bliss of Unearth Noise... The Are You Before shows generally switched between post-punk/synth/DIY type business and more ethereal ambient/folk orientated fair, and it's the latter which they purposefully lean into here. "11 vignettes tentatively resting on the peripheries of folk music", they call it, which is mostly on the money, and a good reflection of where interests in the underground generally reside right now. Sorry to use the c word, but Burke shows himself a keen curatorial eye and a great grasp on the current zeitgeist. If you wanna know where things are presently at, you'd do a lot worse than to start here.