This sampler has a lot of excitement in it, with lots of new releases and a new artist in the mix. Five artists are represented and their songs are more mixed up than previous samplers, considering the first couple samplers put an artists’ songs back to back. The five artists on this sampler are:
John Jarvis, celebrating his third album on the label, Whatever Works, gets two songs. Jarvis would write one more album for the label, but it would not be featured on a sampler.
Edgar Meyer, releasing Love Of A Lifetime, gets two songs, including one in his typical humorous format.
Billy Joe Walker Jr. gets two songs from his new album Universal Language.
Robert Greenidge and Michael Utley also finally have a new album, Heat. Their band has grown in scope and has a fuller sound. They get two songs to promote it. They also would not make any more albums for the label.
Caldwell Plus is the new artist featured, with an electronic funk/jazz sound that sits between everything else on the label. This would be their only album.
This sampler really shows the diversity that the label is cultivating. It’s probably becoming a necessity to release two samplers a year because of everything that is happening. The catalog has grown quickly in just two years, with some artists releasing three albums in that time. This would probably be considered the peak of the label’s rise, evidenced by the last albums of some of the label’s founders.
The album artwork is greatly disappointing in that it breaks with most of the prior standards. The cover discards the large white border and instead presents two presentations of the sampler’s represented albums. One is a small thumbnail along the right and the other is a confusing, distorted collage with three squashed horizontal covers and two stretched vertical covers. However, the gradient color bar is in place, but the artist title is wrapped to two lines to make space for all the album text.
Sampler ‘88 Volume Two
John Jarvis, celebrating his third album on the label, Whatever Works, gets two songs. Jarvis would write one more album for the label, but it would not be featured on a sampler.
Edgar Meyer, releasing Love Of A Lifetime, gets two songs, including one in his typical humorous format.
Billy Joe Walker Jr. gets two songs from his new album Universal Language.
Robert Greenidge and Michael Utley also finally have a new album, Heat. Their band has grown in scope and has a fuller sound. They get two songs to promote it. They also would not make any more albums for the label.
Caldwell Plus is the new artist featured, with an electronic funk/jazz sound that sits between everything else on the label. This would be their only album.
This sampler really shows the diversity that the label is cultivating. It’s probably becoming a necessity to release two samplers a year because of everything that is happening. The catalog has grown quickly in just two years, with some artists releasing three albums in that time. This would probably be considered the peak of the label’s rise, evidenced by the last albums of some of the label’s founders.
The album artwork is greatly disappointing in that it breaks with most of the prior standards. The cover discards the large white border and instead presents two presentations of the sampler’s represented albums. One is a small thumbnail along the right and the other is a confusing, distorted collage with three squashed horizontal covers and two stretched vertical covers. However, the gradient color bar is in place, but the artist title is wrapped to two lines to make space for all the album text.