Fifteen years ago, a couple of co-workers in Chicago started a record label by contacting a band they had never met and offering to release a full-length album. The result, almost named “curmudgeon,” became kranky, a record label that routinely pushes the sonic limits of music. Out of appreciation and admiration, we invited the label to pick out some tracks to represent the history of their pioneering label.

The almost two-hour podcast, mixed by our rich-media guru Bryant, begins with a track from kranky’s first release in ’93 (“Labradford”) and follows the aural adventure that the label has been taking us on every year since. Included are the now-classic anarchist orchestrations of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the mormon indie-rock of Low, the oft-overlooked space disco of Out Hud, the blissed-out drones of Windy & Carl, and the newest artist, hallucinatory songstress Valet. Photo of Valet by Rhys Balmer.

Tracklisting
1. Labradford “Disremembering” From Prazision
2. Jessamine “Cellophane” From Jessamine
3. Bowery Electric “Long Way Down” From Bowery Electric
4. Magnog “Lost Landing” From Magnog
5. Stars of the Lid “Fucked Up (3:57 AM)” From The Ballasted Orchestra
6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor “The Dead Flag Blues” From F# A# (Infinity)
7. Low “Two-Step” From Secret Name
8. Pan American “K. Luminate” From 360 Business/360 Bypass
9. Windy & Carl “Resolution” From Consciousness
10. Out Hud “Hair Dude, You’re Stepping On My Mystique” From S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.
11. Growing “Pavement Rich in Gold” From The Sky’s Run Into the Sea
12. loscil “Lucy Dub” From First Narrows
13. Nudge “Classic Mode” From Cached
14. Tim Hecker “Dungeoneering” From Harmony in Ultraviolet
15. Deerhunter “Like New” From Flourescent Grey
16. Valet “Kehaar” From Naked Acid

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