compass: the catacombs.

COMPASS is basically a dude named Dave Doom. With the help of many friends and instruments, the dude made an album called Munchy the Bear, and that album has actually had a surprising impact on my life.

I realized this when I decided to use "Harp", a 43 second composition from his album, for a dance I am choreographing. As I watched my dancers writhing under blankets to this song, I recalled several months before when I listened to Munchy the Bear on repeat while carving woodblocks for my senior art thesis. Moments later, I was taken back to a year ago, when the album pushed me through a tumultuous but lovely spring break in Vermont.

Behind the experimentation, weirdness, and dissonance...there is something surprisingly uplifting about Doom's compositions. Tiny Mix Tapes put it well by saying, "...Munchy the Bear, though cynically obsessed with the ever-present threat of impending doom, is nonetheless filled with pleasantly upbeat pop tunes..." Death, war, addiction, and general doom and gloom overpopulate this record, yet there's a sense of catharsis in all of it.

Perhaps I am heavily influenced by my brief encounter with Eiko Otake earlier this year, but Doom's music makes me want to curl up on the floor and yawn out all tensions..."to move/dance actively, forgetting the clutter in my life and fully "tasting" the body and mind". I know I sound cray-cray at this point, but I just have a lot of feelings, ok?

In any case, I didn't mean for this post to be about Munchy the Bear, though I do highly recommend purchasing it. (All profits from the album go towards Oxfam International, which seems to be a worthy cause provided you don't care much about that whole Starbucks controversy from last year.)

Compass recently opened up "the catacombs", a collection of unreleased material available for download on their website. The songs are random, and as Doom notes, "many of these tracks are unmastered or fancilly mixed and all are weird." Despite the warning, some of these creations capture that Munchy magic, and I couldn't be happier about exploring the catacombs.

The songs in the catacombs range in length from the 17 second "Call Me" to the 8 minute "Ginger Angel", in sound from the acoustic feel of "Even In The City 11/06" to the electro "Eon the Fidget", and in theme from birdies to Hiroshima. Explore them yourself here, or download a few selections below.

d/l: COMPASS- Wake Up On Time (YSI)
d/l: COMPASS- Even In The City 11/06 (YSI)
d/l: COMPASS- Philosopher's of America (YSI)
d/l: COMPASS- Never Live Forever (YSI)*
(3 unreleased indie-experimental tracks, *from Munchy the Bear)
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