VA - Kindercore Fifty: We Thank You [3CD Box Set] (2000)

Since first surfacing in 1996, the Athens, GA-based indie Kindercore has emerged as arguably the most consistently entertaining and appealing label in the new American underground. Records as diverse as Dressy Bessy's Pink Hearts, Yellow Moons, Kitty Craft's Beats and Breaks From the Flower Patch, and Japancakes' If I Could See Dallas compare favorably with anything issued in the late 1990s, and while much of the company's focus remains devoted to the resurgent Athens scene, releases like Etienne Charry's 36 Erreurs and the Just Another Taste of Electronic Watusi Boogaloo comp reveal an increasing international outlook all too often absent from the insular Amerindie community. Kindercore Fifty: We Thank You celebrates the label's success in grand style, serving up three discs of brand new material, rarities, and remixes spanning from obscurities like the Catskills' cover of the Phil Spector classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and the hilariously-named Nipples for Days' "Cows in a Tornado" to tracks from indie icons like the Olivia Tremor Control and the Apples in Stereo. The remix disc is entirely superfluous, but the rarities disc is a godsend for collectors and the new recordings are consistently great recent signings like Tuesday Weld, C.A.R., and the Four Corners bode well for Kindercore's future. No, thank you.