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about this album
Blonde Redhead singer Kazu Makino is from Kyoto, Japan, a few hours' drive from where a 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami caused toxic meltdowns at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in 2011. Though rebuilding efforts have been extensive, the effects of the disaster continue a year later, and in many cases the people of Japan still have no way of knowing if their food has been contaminated by radiation. This compilation, bringing together unreleased tracks from friends and likeminded musicians such as Deerhunter, Four Tet, and Terry Riley, is Makino's attempt to raise money and support for ongoing relief work in Japan. Charity records are a tricky thing, since it can be difficult to make a group of artists' songs hang together like a traditional album. Some of the most notable examples (1993's No Alternative, 2009's Dark Was the Night) got around this by using kind of a mixtape format, offering stylistically varied songs from loosely related bands buffet-style. We Are the Works in Progress, though, takes more of an AOR approach. Each of the cuts here are similar in pace (slow) and coloring (gray), and there's a somber, almost funereal quality that ties them all together. For example, Blonde Redhead's reworked "Penny Sparkle" is such a natural transition from John Roberts' "Berceuse" that you could mistake them for the same musician. That cohesiveness goes a long way, but sometimes gets misspent on material that's a little on the weak side. There are some big names here, art
