Various Artists

2009 release ** "After issuing three releases, numerous film scores, and projects in the new media and audio-visual fields, Zurich, Switzerland-based Trepok rec. engages in a “European dialogue” with Chronik1, a stylistically diverse compilation of electronic music. Contributions come from Sweden (Utom Alla), Norway (Eiko), Denmark (Fibra), Austria (Ritornell), Italy (Giovanni Dal Monte), Marseilles (Philippe Petit), Portugal (Vitor Joaquim), and, of course, Zurich (Bit-Turner, Trepok rec. founder Aito Takeshi) too. Eiko's “Floating Through a Black Hole” is a neat shape-shifter that starts out in brooding electro-pop mode with a female voice emoting over martial snare rhythms and ends with an injection of disco-tinged flavour. In Bit-Turner's dystopic electronica piece, “Devil's Dance,” sheets of squalling noise batter a bass-throbbing pulse funky of design, and in Aito Takeshi's “Stattler & Waldorf” crisp and forceful beatsmithing underlay billowing electronic atmospheres and crystalline melodies—too bad the track comes and goes so quickly. Portuguese electronic artist Vitor Joaquim (whose Flow was praised by The Wire as one of the best electronic records of 2006) fares best of all with “Sunset Boulevard,” a slowly blossoming and gyroscopic swirl of voices, machine whirrs, and synthetic sounds. Utom Alla opens the release with “Elskade Sjukdom,” a soundscape of electronic textures and distorted voice murmur. The title of Philippe Petit's “Planet of the Ants” promises more than the woozy interlude is able to deliver in less than two minutes, and Dal Monte ends the collection with an atmospheric, meditative setting for vocal and electric guitar (“Nothing is Changed”). "