VA - life is beautiful records: veneration for the sacred action (2026)

aloisius's enigmatic life is beautiful label/collective/ fully establishes its lore on this colossal compilation: 39 tracks of whimsical pop, edgy improv, freewheeling poetry, noise, dusty psych, abstract hip-hop, folk and saccharine soul from artists you'll know and a fair few you won't. Featuring Bianca Scout, VOICE ACTOR, James Massiah, Kenichi Iwasa, THE NARRATOR, Isaiah Hull and many, many more.

If you've spent any amount of time orbiting Cafe Oto, streaming NTS or even browsing these pages, you'll surely have interfaced with life is beautiful, even by accident. The self-styled "gesamtkunstwerk" was established by the mysterious aloisius in 2022 initially as a radio show, before he decided to complicate things with a collective, a series of live performances and a record label a year later. And after booking artists like Klein, Lauren Duffus, YHWH Nailgun, John Glacier and DJ Spanish Fly, and releasing genuinely off-kilter records from James Massiah, Pretty V and THE NARRATOR, life is beautiful comes correct with its first compilation - and it's good. We shouldn't have expected less from a label who dump their demos and experiments ("resources and inspiration") on a file exchange portal on their own site, but the set is remarkably generous, scraping together ideas, performances and fully-fledged tracks from a host of their core members, regular collaborators and close associates.

Fittingly, the set opens with tracks from each of the founders, who establish the label's core sound. NWAKKE begins with 'i need you in a positive way', a cloudy hypnagogic R&B marvel that juxtaposes her cool-headed vocal runs with melancholy drones, spy movie strings, tape-fucked field recordings and piano punctuations. Then the mic's handed to Amber Joy, aka THE NARRATOR, who also works as the label's artistic director; on 'SUDDENLY', she follows spring's beguiling 'RADIOWEAVER' with another skittish post-everything collage that chops 'n pastes cheap synth vamps, molasses-slow breaks and choral vocals into a dreamy modern hymn. And aloisus' 'you are god' runs out of its stuck groove as if it's from the very same thought, blurring gospel moans across Prince-like drum machine loops and EZ-listening piano phrases. Bianca Scout hands us a taster of her collaborative project with London's Cajm on the hypnotic 'Welcome to Hello' , while poet Isaiah Hull teams up with y+Your for the wonked 'vampire money'.

Japser Maurice, aka jaso, turns in a short, guitar-led theme and cellist abi asisa shifts the set into a completely different direction on 'calling', complimenting her eerie dissonances with clipped, decelerated beats. Basically there's a whole record of music from the crew before 'veneration...' has begun in earnest, and it only gets better from here, running through aesthetic experiments from multi-instrumentalist Kenichi Iwasa, self-styled "beat wizard" psychedelic ensemble. (who's one half of Brum's Everything is Psychedelic with Tony Bontana) and Thom Dehli before we reach the compilation's crown jewel, a 21-minute live performance from okk70 ensemble. We can't tell you exactly who's playing, but it's worth the price of entry alone, a squirming slo-mo jazz side that gets to the roots of the life is beautiful sound.

Elsewhere there's a chewably eccentric solo moment from Bianca Scout ('superscribe 24'), a phenomenally moody collaboration between VOICE ACTOR and aloisius ('24'), a spirited, lo-fi transmission from London's josiane pozi and a deeper than deep jam from orchestra379, aloisius' "collective improvisation project" that's featured artists like Ben Vince, Kenichi Iwasa and abi asisa. Honestly there's so much more than we can even readily dive into - label comps are so often a slog but this one's stuffed to the gills with genuinely creative experimentation from some of the London scene's most beguiling outsiders.