Various Artists – Looking Back In A Funny Way (30th Anniversary Edition)

Various Artists' Looking Back In A Funny Way arrives as a 30th anniversary release for Trunk Records, the British label founded in 1996 and known for rescuing lost, overlooked and previously unreleased recordings. Rather than looking back with a simple retrospective, this LP continues that mission with unheard material that reflects Trunk's long-running interest in library music, film and television oddities, jazz, electronics and stranger corners of British sound culture.

The selection is deliberately wide-ranging: unreleased disco from Roger Webb, electronic experiments by Basil Kirchin, psychedelia from The Advancement, jazz from The Silhouettes, and contributions linked to Delia Derbyshire and Coleridge Goode. Other pieces draw from children's dance workshops and even a commercial for the Milton Keynes shopping centre, which says a lot about the label's taste for the curious and the unexpectedly evocative. Taken together, it plays less like a standard various-artists set than a guided rummage through several decades of unusual recordings.

That approach also explains why the album feels so specific. Trunk built its reputation by bringing unheard or neglected material into circulation, from non-commercial library recordings to cult soundtrack discoveries, and Looking Back In A Funny Way keeps that spirit intact by making the anniversary itself an excuse to release more music rather than simply repackage familiar highlights. For anyone drawn to archival compilations with real personality, this is an especially characterful snapshot of the label's world.

Features

• Limited to 500 copies
• Full colour sleeve with rare Atomage cover artwork
• Black Vinyl, 30th Anniversary Edition