(04.21.05) Showcasing the frontier of Russian electronic music, Dars Records' Music of Deneb.2099 is a collection of sixteen soft-glitch electronic tracks that bubble and chatter on the polyrhythmic side of the electronic arena while keeping to a more sedate and temperate BPM (naturally, as soon as I make that sweeping statement, Ili's "Soft Denebing" thumbs its nose at me with its aggressive M3rck-ian programming). Andrey Kiritchenko's "Parable" is a textured elegy of fragile glitch and this track from his 2003 Ad Noiseam release Kniga Skazok sets the stage and both Eu and Navagua explore similar terrain with their contributions.

Enegwai's "Flikker" is a thousand-fingered collision of acoustic guitar and particle electronics, a finger-picked hum of live strings that fights the confines of a drum loop, struggling to find its own melodic pace outside the rigid techno thump of the mechanical beat. It's an unusual track that makes up for its lack of toe-tapping rhythm with its fascinating sprawl of sound. Syntetika's "Wetrax (drum edit)" layers pure melodic tones against soft-edged percussion (nearly world music in their timbre and texture) with such sweeping simplicity that it settles an ache in my chest. Stud's "7-2-4-4" warps piano, guitar, drum kit and a swooping electronic bird call from a gentle call-and-response melody into a stuttering mélange of sound that finally turns itself inside out, throwing its percussive guts all over the room for a few moments before regaining control and gracefully exiting stage left.

Soutien Gorge's emoticon track stirs rather human emotions in me, reaching down into my chest with its solid beats and bubbling analog melody and, finding the last vestige of youthful innocence left, pulls it out through my nose and tosses it aloft so that it can float above my head in the light wind stirred up by Soutien Gorge's lithe programming. Nightech mines the same vein with "Positiva on Arrioph" with a more stoic drum beat and a richer gloss to the ambient tones.

I know so little about the Russian music scene that I have no idea who most of these artists are (though names like "Stud" and "Add" make me laugh with their reminder of the simple elegance of language), and the liner notes don't give away any history of the artists other than their home cities. I do know that music transcends all manner of geographical and linguistic boundaries. True enough to be a cliché, I know, but when you hear something like Music for Deneb.2099 and are reminded that we all make and listen to music for the same emotional reasons, the world seems like a very small place. I am a dot and Music for Deneb.2099 is another dot that connects me to the other side of the world and, for that, I am thankful.

Music of Deneb.2099 is out now on Dars.

((( Buy it at ElectroSputnik )))

Dars