"Silence is a sound no one wants to hear," a disaster relief expert once remarked when describing the process of seeking out survivors from wreckage. As the latest release from Ultra-red's online record label and archive, Public Record, A Silence Broken (Public Record CD) is a sharp-edged collection of acute sonic interventions on the intimate relationship between queer artists and AIDS activism in an age when cultural complacency and big business connive to keep the true nature of the disaster off our screens and out of our lives. Taking as its starting point the ACT-UP slogan "Silence = Death", each of the eight contributors to this collection creates a track that links it directly to that other great 80s arena for bodies in motion: the dancefloor. There's an 80s style of listening eclecticism that suits their collective endeavour: Terre Thaemlitz as DJ Sprinkles goes for Deep House hustle on "Hush Now", while Toronto's fabulous Lezzies On X punch up some vital thrash rhythms on "Dont_withthe", Jack Tactic's "Can't Fake The Feeling" reconfigures House's synthetic emotional rhetoric into a vital demand for real feeling. Ultra-red close thing out with "Break 'Dis". So get up on your feet, people. Whether you like it or not, this is one sound you'll really want to hear.