American sound artist (Austin, TX) Loren Dent uses guitar, strings, sampling, vinyl manipulations, and field recordings to create places to live in. We are presented with 77 plus minutes of sound and light. The only way I can describe all this sound is that it is alive! No weak preset synth tones and aimless doodling. We are in the presence of a major voice in the ambient field here. There are so many layers going on at once and playing it loudly or softly will change the effect, like all good ambient pieces. I recommend this unhesitatingly even though there are a few tracks I would have left out simply because they weren't at the level of the rest.

Unit21 is Stanislav Vdovin and November is an extension of previous releases on net label Thinner entitled "September-October." According to the info included on the insert "the tracks are built on looped micro samples from soviet vinyl records, home microphone recording, drum patterns and processed white noise". As you might expect this has a scratchy lo-fi feel about it in places, but it isn’t all about that. There are tracks that have little or no crackle to them at all. This is post-everything. Droney, noisy (but not overbearing), and, as you would expect from all the loops, very hypnotic. The pieces build layer upon layer creating a sense of expectation, or even creepy dread at times. I particularly like his use of white noise. There are beats here but they do not dominate. Maybe I should change the word beat to rhythm instead. You can hardly dance to it. Maybe twitch a little, but definitely not dance. The feeling here is cold, but not lifeless, like the difference between a winter day in November on Earth rather than on Mars.

The first compilation by Lagunamuch of 14 Russian sonic artists all centered around the theme of water and shipping. There’s quite a bit of variety here with the usual suspects: ambient, beats, twisted jazz, dark ambient, and abstract noise workouts with all the tracks flowing into each other (but indexed separately). Highlights are Abstract Avenue’s "Submarine" a nice claustrophobic, beat driven piece accompanied by scary noises and synthetic melody. The whole CD holds to the theme quite nicely with hardly a clinker in the lot. Of course, what I would call a clinker you might consider a hit. I enjoyed this very much and recommend it. Artists included are: Selffish, Lazyfish, Abstract Avenue, Unit21, Oloolo, Sever, Riverz End, Holden, Unbound Persistence, Batiskaf, Total Reboot, Kriipis Tulo, Father?, Did Daywater.

Dimlite is Dmitri Grimm, with help from friends on vocals and woodwinds. Hip jazzy cut �n paste sonic pilfering from all and sundry results in the post-pop alliteration and disassembled count-the-cultural-reference game. Interesting as all this is, I can�t help but think that this is just the musical version of channel surfing. Something I like to do, but ultimately results in a sense of ennui and boredom as we experience reality in even smaller and smaller pieces, lighting on nothing for more than a few seconds until our ever decreasing attention spans force us to change the channel again. Don�t get me wrong, I like this but I can�t help thinking that this is the end of art and not a good thing in the long run. Perhaps this art form is the intermediate stage of something wonderful, waiting in the wings until all the fuss has died down. I hope so. It will do until then or until I find something else to listen to.

I’m always suspicious when artists put naked women on their inserts. It’s like a stand-up comedian telling dirty jokes. It’s too easy to do and is usually an attempt to hide the fact that they have no talent. Well folks, that’s what we’ve got here. A naked girl on the insert artwork and a CD full of electronic beeps and bloops. Now I happen to like bleeps and bloops but it’s much more interesting listening to it when this kind of thing was new. The ownership of expensive analog synthesizers and other recording equipment doesn’t make one an artist, and while it does have its moments, this is old stuff, in the sense of "been there, done that." This is retro, and I’d rather hear it when it was original. But if this sounds like your cup of tea (including the naked girl on the insert) go for it.