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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.

Originally released on CD only in 2010 and deleted the same year. 400 copies only.

London-based independent record label, 2009 - present day. www.secondlanguagemusic.com

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