Genocide In Sudan CD

Proceeds from this CD will go to the United Nations Refuge Agency and UNICEF.
From a strictly musical point of view, charity albums often lack in quality due to the erratic nature of the songs, chosen understandably for name value over musical quality, and the fact that few artist have an extra A-game cut at the ready, just waiting to be used to save the world. Not that the songs on these discs are even always rarities. But it's a fine balance. Use a song that's too popular, and the buying public will likely already own the song and the need to purchase the charity disc goes down. Use an unreleased cut, and the artist risks putting out a lower quality product on a hopefully high-profile release.
Miraculously, Waxploitation manages to avoid all of these obstacles on their hastily released compilation meant to raise money and awareness about the current genocide in the East African nation of Sudan. Yet in the process, the highly diverse company has gathered together a stellar collection of songs that, with rare exception, move from one to the next with a purpose, both musical and humanitarian. Things open bluntly with System of a Down before suddenly jerking to the reggae downtempo of Thievery Corporation and the golden age-inspired hip-hop of Jurassic 5, but once this opening sound clash (and they do clash) is over, things move at a much more sensible pace, with Craig Armstrong remixing the first lady of 'give peace a chance,' ONO, as in Yoko. Damon Albarn proves again his heightened awareness of African music with the melodica-driven Gorillaz track, "Tomorrow Comes Today," one of the disc's highlights that points towards Albarn's fantastic Mali Music album for further investigation. Obviously, the remaining list of artists is just as stellar, with the best of many genres representing: Danger Mouse and Murs (hip-hop), Tortoise (post-rock), Mark Farina (house) and DJ Spooky (trip-hop). By the end you actually feel a bit ashamed that it took a humanitarian disaster to bring this sort of compilation together. ~ Joshua Glazer

S.O.A.D./Jurassic 5/J.Scott/ X-Ecutioners/Gorillaz/Tortoise