The Music Information Centre Lithuania might have a drab name, but their releases have reached the point now where seeing a new work from them in my inbox is a cause for excitement, and I’m happy to push them to the top of my queue. This compilation just squeezed in before Christmas, and is a 71 minute collection of selected experimental and ambient pieces from Lithuanian artists, mixing some previously unreleased material with recent album tracks.

What really pleases me about compilations like this is how breadth and consistency can be found simultaneously. On the one hand, it showcases a good range of sounds and tones, yet on the other hand, if you were played this release ‘blind’ and told it was a single-artist album, you could believe it. It’s predominantly full of acoustic and synthetic atmospheres, pads, drones, electronic effects, and occasional soft and crisp rhythms that build naturalistically from found sounds more often than from compositional structure.

Highlights include- but are not limited to- Patris ideleviius’ brooding and cinematic “Sonata ianileve”, a beautiful softness of melody in FUME’s “Strala”, and the truly romantic “Glimpses Of Dust” from Nortas. There’s a soporific thread that runs through several pieces that have a calming, sleepy vibe. Tracks like Skeldos’ “Tylos”, Daina Dieva’s crisp and icy “litis remias siena virpant vanden” eschew anything percussive in favour of either flat or slowly ebbing atmospherics that really draw you in.

For contrast, dark electronica that loosely borders on industrial and even techno can be found in Distorted Noise Architect’s compelling “Fictive Live”, and the journey towards Tiese’s “JM FM” is a descent into much more frustrated noise work, showing that it’s certainly not all happiness and light.

The compilation progresses in a nice considered way, and after the angrier noise comes ‘the synthwave section’. Unit 7’s “Methods Of Coercion” and Phil Von’s “Capsized Poetry” are both strong, perhaps lacking in distinctive character or melody that would make them really shine, serving more like gaming background music, but rich nonetheless. Proceedings are them calmed down nicely to close, with the Nortas track followed by the enchanting, broadly ethnic vocal, flute and string tones of Raguvos’ “Medziotojas” which gently nods towards the more folky side of MIC’s work.

If every country had an agency as strong as MIC Lithuania when it comes to finding and highlighting the quality electronic and experimental music coming from their scene, the world would be a very rich place indeed, sonically speaking.