I love compilations like this. The brilliant end of product of record label folly. I imagine the Tapete Records bosses (Gunther Buskies and Dirk Darmstaedter) were sitting in a bar deep in the heart of the indiest part of their Hamburg homeland, getting a little warm cheeked over a couple of steins, when the subject of the word “no” entered their beer-addled conversation, and a few weeks later they had trawled their label’s nearly 20-year back catalogue to find their favorite “no” inspired tracks to populate this compilation.

Of course, I could be wrong (rumors of such an occurrence in 1997 exist), and this could just be one man’s philosophical musings; however, let’s go with my version because it’s infinitely cooler, and “cool” is exactly what this 10-track You Can’t Say No Forever – Ten Taped Treaties Of The Word “No”, album is swathed in.

Essentially, this, like the Tapete Records historical roster, is eclectic and often slightly jangly, or at least ‘jangly adjacent eclectic.” As such, the release visits the sombre, cloying sounds of Mark Lanegan or Eels in No Grace (Christian Kjellvander) and The Lilac’s Time’s No Sad Songs, which add a rooting, dense ying to the remainder of the album’s more sprightly yang.

As such, the album skips through the salacious, twee-pop earworms of Nein (Andreas Dornau) and the superlative standout of You Can’t Say No Forever (Lacrosse), slides seamlessly into the yacht rock of No Sound (Louis Philippe & The Night Mail), before reaching what feels like a natural conclusion of cool with the indie-pop of No Fame by Robert Forster.

However, the very best of the album is heard in Martin Carr’s No Money In My Pocket and Lloyd Cole’s No Truck, with both tracks coursing plinking acoustic riffs through sumptuous vocals and indie folk and alt country persuasions, respectively. It is something different from what we associate with both artists, and all the more stunning because of the disparity.

Sometimes label folly works wonderfully. It does here.

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