I ate at a Korean cafeteria the other day after a half-hour wild-goose chase, led by my friend E. as she tried to locate another, reputedly much better Korean restaurant on thirty-something street. We never found it. It was raining and muggy and there were awful hordes of people, and, of course, no less than three umbrellas per shuffling body. The cafeteria was fluorescently lit, and blaring psychotically bad Korean pop and dance medleys while we ate. There was an eye-popping variety of things to choose from in the buffet line but everything I selected turned out to taste nasty-beyond. Cold, stiff, breaded chicken with congealed "spicy" sauce and rubbery bits of beef that could have been of the same stuff from which they make those joke-shop fake dog turds.

(Bad transition in: 3, 2, 1 .) On this Hush Records sampler, there are no fake dog turds to be found! Yes, some tracks are weaker than others, but for a sampler, a dubious-at-best species of record, this is surprisingly solid throughout. The sampler is an odd thing. I've said this before. Their appeal as an "item for sale" seems to be minimal at best. Far as I can tell, they're only good for submission to bozos such as myself, who then act as conduits between the label's promotions department and the reader. Bozo listens to tracks culled from here and there-- recent releases, usually-- and comments on the individual tracks, guiding the reader towards some (and away from other) of the albums of origin. With that bit of meta-review out of the way, we can move on to the track-by-track. Together. Thanks in advance to everybody, lay-person and big-shot alike, who submitted their opinions for use in this review.

"Cliché Lines" and "Bossa Rev" by Blanket:

"Chad Crouch's easy-as-Sunday-morning folka-nova compositions would make me eat glass-shard chowder if I had to listen to them everyday, but if you hear 'em just once in a while, man, are they good! That smooth voice, those spacious, delicate arrangements-- swoon, squared."
--Anonymous Pitchfork Staff Writer

Kaitlyn Ni Donovan's "Ceiling Tiles" and "Ceiling Tiles Remix" drew the following (highly gestural) praise:

"Portis-Ni-head, yet Lilithy. In a good way. Portis-Ni-Lilith! Electric drums and dark Rhodes arpeggios anchor Donovan's doomed but delicate vocals and sultry melodies. But the remix sounds the same! Re-Ni-petitive?"
--Helen Keller's clone, aided by Helen Keller's interpreter's clone.

Siskel and Ebert, also closet indie-nerds, offer a much more mixed review of Kind of Like Spitting's "Boy Cries Wolf" and "I Know You Heard Me the First Time." Ebert, ever the curmudgeon, had only this chilly bone to throw:

"The second of KOLS's tracks has moments, but its grating melodies and diffuse air don't compare to the much better first track, 'Boy Cries Wolf.'"

Siskel on the other hand had nothing at all to say. But it is a great track, take our word for it! Acoustic-based pop never sounded so very alive!

[Marvel at the sheer irreverence of it all! With total disregard for music review conventions, Camilo, post-modern wunderkind and dashing steward of the vanguard switches format again and sheds point-of-view like some mythic beast!]

Fancie contributed two tracks, "Lovers Who Are Seekers" and "Love is Meat" to the Hush sampler. The first is a solemn, principally acoustic song with a beautiful trumpet interlude that really made me want to hear the rest of her work. The second is much darker and intimate, but likewise intriguing. I say "look into it." "Really."

Reclinerland offers a respite from the acoustic surfeit of the first eight tracks with "Dirty and Clean," an indie-pop gem with distorted guitar choruses and sing-along vocal lines. "Vegas Remains," on the other hand, shows a bit too much Simon and Garfunkel damage. That is, acoustic arpeggios and wussy, sort of go-nowhere folky vocals.

The Operacycle is, like, moody. And instrumental. The first of their two contributions is "The Carter Break." The driving, riders-on-the-storm redux bassline and the sampled horn bits at the end didn't do much for me. The slightly more interesting "Western" is only slightly more interesting.

Corrina Repp strays too far into fertility-goddess, 60's flower-maiden folk contemplation for my taste. The first song, "Opinion," is pretty-- just voice and guitar. "Your Son Now" is likewise fairly attractive, well-sung, and soothing. Just not my cup of hippy root-brew.

Jeff London's beautiful compositions give the sampler a much needed boost-- electric and otherwise-- as it nears its end. Again, we find trumpet tastefully integrated into a slow-rock arrangement. "Memphis" is the livelier of the two; "Bills to Pay," if you couldn't guess by the name, has a more alone-on-a-bar-stool feel to it. As far as standard pop-song values, London scores highest of all the tracks. Standard, effective structure and crystal clear arrangement.

Which brings us, not a moment too soon, to Amy "The Alliterator" Anelle. Acoustic guitar! Again! And a folky female voice, too! "Idaho": "I've never been so far as Idaho/ But I hope to make it there one stormy day." Judge for yourself. To her credit, her harmonies are sort of, I don't know, pretty. "Soft City" is the last of the sampler's eighteen tracks. Snore City? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

-Camilo Arturo Leslie