"Women Take Back the Noise" is a broad collection, tied together by the single string of female musicianship. It isn't all that new - I've been hanging onto it for awhile, trying to find the right time to dive into all three CDs together - but it's still available and still worth talking about. A large and ambling compilation, it's divided onto three different discs, named Orgonauta, Vociferous, and Scheherazade. Each disc is its own world, loosely gathered by genre similarities but not confined by them.

The beginning of Orgonauta is the strange heart of this amazing compilation, akin to sitting in a dark room waiting for your kidnappers to do whatever it is they are planning to do to you. Maggi Payne's song "Recycle" is as subtle as an optical illusion; you keep rubbing your eyes, trying to figure out why something looks as strange as it does, but if you don't understand the details, it will never feel quite 'right'. In "Dirt and Meat/Muscles.Sinews" by Ava Mendoza, you've just stepped into an alien world and have all sorts of alien inventions whizzing around your head. Your curiosity is reflected in their examinations. You would swat them away like flies if you weren't so awestruck. From there, Orgonauta takes on an almost mystical tone. You have accepted your fate as the victim of kidnappers, whatever that fate may be, and are almost excited about what might come next. My only complaint is that it can get a little too space-y at times; just a little more warm instrumentation would have kept this in a more humanistic realm.

Vociferous can also take off on a glitchy tangent sometimes, yet I found something to like even in songs like ioioi's "Anulla Mantide Innamorata". The fuzz of the background and beats is a warm blanket that takes the chill out of the scattered, random notes laid on top. "Army or Two" by Experiment Haywire took a few listens but her calm voice speaking harsh words over frenetic beats soon won me over; it's now one of my favorites. In fact, "Army or Two" is the epitome of the Vociferous CD for me: music that forced me to look outside my usual favored genres, and fall in love with each unique song for its own sake.

It was much more predictable that I would enjoy Scheherazade; I'm already a fan of Hertta Lussu ?ss? so I had no doubt that I would also enjoy everyone who shared the disc with them. Scheherazade is both more earthy and more ethereal than Vociferous and Orgonauta; if this disc has claws, they don't show as brazenly as the other two do. BCO Women's Auxiliary comes close with "Big City Stomp", a witch chant with a musicbox accompaniment. On the other hand, "Walk Among Us" by A.L. Dentel is a soft piece centered around various field recordings, while Christina N's "(Description of) An Empty Airport" is as lonely and deserted as the song's title suggests.

But the greatest mistake would be to approach "Women Take Back the Noise" as if every song should fit into similar boxes. The purpose, and the talent, of this compilation is its wide reach; its chaos is its strength. It shows that "woman" is not a monolith. It shows that women not only can make awesome music, but that they can excel at every genre they fit into. What at first may seem to be a jumbled gathering of disparate pieces is actually a microscopic view of the universality of this compilation and the women who contributed to it. 9/10 -- Eden Hemming Rose (22 May, 2007)