Compilation 1

Okay, if we were going to do a retrospective of Pete Namlook's discography (not saying we are, but "if"), we'd be off to a good start, having already posted some stuff from his early career, his first full album as "Namlook," and the first 12" single by his record label, FAX.  But in 1992 and '93, FAX released over 100 singles, EPs and CDs.  Covering each of those on a one-post-per-record basis would take forever (well, over 100 days I guess, but it would feel like forever) and besides, a lot of it sounds like early 90s techno and house, because that's what it was.  

The FAX website defines the period through 1993 as "Phase I," the first of six phases.  Most of the output during this period consisted of 12" singles by Namlook and various other collaborators performing under various names.  One of the confusing things about Namlook's output, especially in the early years, is that there appears to be some fluidity between collaborative names and album names.  For example, Deltraxx was the collaboration between Namlook and DJ Criss (aka Christian Thier, aka Craig Peck).  Was "Deltraxx" the name of the album or the name of the artist?  The answer is "yes."

FAX periodically packaged several of the 12" singles together into box sets and released them as "Collector's Boxes" of nine to 16 records each.  The box sets (PK 1 Collector's Box through PK 3 Collector's Box) were in the house, trance, hard trance and ambient styles, and were the first of many compilations released by the FAX label.

On January 25, 1993, FAX released the Compilation 1 CD. Instead of a box set of several vinyl discs, Compilation 1 was a single CD and therefore the second full album released by FAX (the ambient album Silence by Namlook and Dr. Atmo was the first).  Most of the tracks on the Compilation 1 CD were in the trance style, although the closing track, Santur, from Silence, was an ambient track.  

1. Deltraxx (Namlook & DJ Criss) - Altered States (Unfused & Tuned)
2. Limelight (Namlook & DJ Brainwave) - Limelight (Holy Guitar Mix)
3. Subsequence (Namlook & Atom Heart) - Invocation (Dance 4 Trance Mix)
4. Hearts Of Space (Namlook & Pascal F.E.O.S.) - With A Medium Into Trance (Drop Out Mix)
5. Synsyl (Namlook & DJ Sylvie) - Breakout II
6. 4Voice (Namlook & Maik Maurice) - Music Hypnotizes (Hypnotizing Mix)
7. Escape (Namlook & Dr. Atmo) - Escape To Earth
8. Sextant (Namlook & DJ Hubee) - Drug Oriented Society
9. Silence (Namlook & Dr. Atmo) - Santur

Only 500 copies of Compilation 1 were printed, and right now, a copy of the CD is for sale on Amazon for $899. A YouTube upload of the album has subsequently been taken down, but most of  the tracks listed above can be individually streamed on YouTube if you search by track title.

Four of these compilation CDs were released in 1993; a fifth Compilation 5 was released in 2006.  So theoretically, if one were to start a retrospective of Namlook's discography, instead of posting over 100 individual 12" singles, it would make more sense, or at least be more efficient, to post each of the four compilation CDs to cover the Phase I output.

This still doesn't mean I'm actually doing a retrospective of Namlook's discography, though.