va - normoton gold (normoton)

of all the artists that are featured on the 'normoton gold' compilation, i'm vaguely familiar only with phon.o, while the others are new to me and are a very pleasant surprises, with their rhythmic and often dance floor oriented music, but of the kind that is also excellent and amusing for home listening. the nuances in the more dance-techno oriented tracks are very subtle and delicate. as is expected on a release of this kind, there's a little bit of minimal(-techno) (by strassmann and landesvatter) and deephouse (by andreas heiszenberger) and it sounds refreshing and unconventional in their tracks (besides the obviously fading out hype of the more classic minimal techno sound). then, shifting through the different corners of the techno spectrum, an interesting moment is noted in the track by electroserge, which has a specific electro-songwriting sense, with vocals, singing and nice beats, making me curious about the forthcoming album by electroserge that's planned to be released. the electro-techno sensibility with singing and vocals, although in a more conventional style, is characteristic also about traffic jam (from poland), whose track is a part of a 12" that will be released by normoton. on the more calmer side of the spectrum, there's smutny, with a nice piece that sounds like improvised ambient music (it's the last track on the cd), then there's the most unexpectedly strange track by mcl in this collection (sounding a bit like undefined industrial-ambient) and then there's uphill racer, who brings in some piano acoustics in the electronic sound and whose album is also expected. altogether 'normoton gold' is a good and varied collection of tracks by artists that are enjoyable for listening and are keeping the listener's close attention to what's going on on the cd and what's going to happen in the next track, through the whole release. (br)