TRACKLISTING :
1. Tula – Tula
2. Tree of Birds – Pete Astor
3. Once Upon – Gareth Dickson
4. Washing Days – 30km Inland
5. Spirit Level (edit) – Dirk Markham
6. Ég umvef hjarta mitt – Ólöf Arnalds
7. Run Turn Follow – Tunng
8. Come Back To Me – Klima
9. Burn and Glo – Women & Children
10. I Lived In Trees – Mark Fry & The A Lords
11. Unstitch – Anna Rose Carter
12. Wesley’s Fingers – Robin Saville
13. The Calling – Autumn Grieve
14. You Can Go Now – The Home Current
15. Set Sail At Sun Set – Junkboy
16. Share – Our Broken Garden
17. A Secret Peace – Isnaj Dui
‘Vertical Integration’ is the label’s second multi-artist compilation. It features a 17-track litany of wonderful new and exclusive tracks by an international roster that includes UK post-folk stylists Tunng, delightful Björk-collaborator, Icelander Olof Arnalds, rejuvenated, French-based cult psych-folk hero Mark Fry and feted Danish baroque balladeers Our Broken Garden, alongside the glowing Anglo-French pop-noir of Klima, Londoner Isnaj Dui’s spectral ambient flute-scapes, the intimate song craft of Scottish Vashti Bunyan sideman Gareth Dickson and the haunting leftfield pop of Sweden-via-Berlin’s Tula, to name but eight of the album’s consistently persuasively cosmopolitan and never less than enthralling essays.
The album’s title can be read in many ways, not least ironically, and unlike Music & Migration, 2L’s previous curatorial exercise, the thematic penumbra here is a loose and ambiguous one. The material is also more song-based than was the case on its predecessor. Most of the artists who were invited to participate seemed genuinely intrigued by the notion of ‘vertical integration’ (whether registering the dictionary definition or, more commonly, projecting their own), while others were playfully bamboozled by it. To investigate exactly what makes the contributors tick, each was probed by Second Language’s Glen Johnson, David Sheppard and journalist Adrian Pannett. The interviews form the album’s packaging: a deluxe, screen-printed fanzine whose alluring visuals are the handiwork work of London-based designer James English.
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