Don't get me wrong -- I am a fan of mid-'90s-era ambient Electronica: Banco de Gaia, Electric Skychurch, William Orbit, 777, et al. (and anyone who has heard the eerie "Mountain of Needles" from David Byrne and Brian Eno's seminal masterwork My Life in the Bush of Ghosts will know what I mean). Yet the tracks that make up this semi-continuous comilpation by DiN20 don't leave enough of an impression that they're helping to move things forward.

DiN is the musical identity of Electronica maven Ian Boddy, who collaborates with various fellow sonic artistes Subsonic Experience, Reuter, dbkaos, Robert Rich, ARC and Wöstheinrich. DiN20 is simply the 20th release in his catalog (and "iNDEX02" the second compliation), really a sort of retrospective, compiling two tracks from each of the DiNs 11 through 19. There are thumbnail-sized pictures of the amazing artwork that accompanied those original releases of Boddy & Co.'s songs; an insert booklet of these covers at CD-size would have been a real bonus for this comp. The best cuts are fifth up, "The Mystic," with its phasery, alien danger, the sixth, "Edge of Nowhere," and twelfth, chasm-yawning "Tuning Out."

All the tracks are well-executed, well-sequenced and well-produced, and at nearly 78 minutes this CD is a great chill-out listen. But here's the downside: it is compromised by the fact that (a) these songs could have been recorded and produced 10 years ago, and (b) most of them wind up sounding as though they were.

Broken Whispers is one of the latest of the manifold projects of Norwegian-born Dark Ambient craftsman Karsten Hamre. This is a disc that is made up of slow and low minimalist electronics, sounding like equal parts Laibach and Gas, with many other influences solidly backing it up. "Abandoned Glory," the opener, contains what may be a Hammond organ loop trilling in the background -- a cool component to have. Subtle symphonic rumblings in track three, "The Black Waves," are a nice touch as well. Things really start to click, however, with tracks four and five, "Enshrouded Lands" and "An Ominous Serenade," the most Gas-like of the bunch. Track six, "Dioxide Universal" whirs along just as slowly and ominously as its predecessor, although unfortunately there is an audible skipping sound about midway through the piece (and it wasn't my server, my hard drive, or my imagination). But it's the closer, "When Darkness Falls," that works the best because of its pacing, chord choices and the variety of sounds heard in the background; it tells the most captivating story. The CD insert artwork is nice, too -- all done by K. H. himself, and recalls the old Elijah's Mantle album covers.

For anyone looking for an entry-level introduction to the classic Industrial "sound" by newer bands -- without having to slog through the requisite war horses of the past -- this is where to start. The opener, v01d's "Revolutions" and track 7, Cyanotic's "Suspension of Disbelief," are both great, chugging and churning industrial/metal contributions. The third track, PTI's "iDentify," mixes a Download-style menace with Depeche Mode hummability in its hook-y chorus, a very winning blend. Deadliner's soundtrackish, instrumental epic "Aurelander," track 8, is just begging for some vocals to better set off its cinematic mood. The refrain to Dichotomy Incarnate's "Defiant Majesty" is awesome: "She's gonna straighten my spine and wrinkle my mind...." Anyone is hard-pressed (pun intended) to find much lyrical originality such as this, anymore. But the extraordinary twist about this compilation is that it actually has a centerpiece: the amazing track 5, "Seems to Be" by CEOXiME. Female vocals fronting a jazzy, swinging cabaret torch-song of sorts make for the most intriguing and infectious spot on the entire disc. If it sounds the slightest bit out of place, it merely goes to show how much new ground can be broken for Industrial/EBM/etc. if people will only look around.

This compliation is clearly dependent on its various Industrial/EBM genre-roots, yet shows an exceptionally broad range of imagination. If this is not the perfect way for a newbie to get acquainted with the Industrial beast, this is the closest you can come. Pick it up now, if you still can....

On the surface, there doesn't seem like much to the somber synth dirge instrumentals presented here by this (presumably) German entity. But "Brise des Todes," the second track, begins to instill fond remembrance of Spleen-and-Ideal-era Dead Can Dance with its plodding drums and half-step, minor-chord progression. Granted, these songs apparently came to be realized over a period of several years, but none of Vinterriket's thirteen (of COURSE there are thirteen) songs really constitutes a centerpiece, and the inclusion of some kind of thematic unifier to tie this album together as a recorded work would have helped a great deal. Also, when we finally do hear a full rock drum pattern -- on "Das fahle Liehl," that 13th track, no less -- it's a drum machine. Yes, that is in keeping with how "programmed" the CD is supposed to be, but live drums would have really blown us away after our DCD/Laibachian rigor-mortis-fest. Yet it is listenable without being (too) soundtrackish -- mysterious enough and adequately cliché-free to be perfectly good, generic background music; think of a TV hospital drama played out in a haunted house.

For you uninitiated, if your blood type is "0+1" but you don't know it yet, this is one of those CDs that will forever wed you to the Little Black Box. Formed out of the programming brains of Sister Machine Gun and Christ Analogue respectively, Chris Randall and Wade Alin concoct an all-instrumental sonic assault by the numbers. The special deal with this CD is that you, the buyer, become legally licensed for file sharing, podcasting, and even sampling the song tracks themselves, under something called Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 (those numbers, again...). What's neat about that added dimension is that On the One and the Zero doubles as both entertainment and raw source material to make even more entertainment. Although the music itself isn't much more than straight EBM canon, you really can't go wrong either way.