The term "Electronica" is widely derided among the dance music and post-raver community.  It's generally seen as a term invented by the industy as a catch-all to easily market (read: sell) all music with a predominantly digital edge in it's production and in the 90s, acts such as Moby & Orbital brought those sounds to the stadiums of the world.  But at it's roots, Electronica (alternatively called Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) & Electronic Listening Music at various points) was simply a variation of dance music made more for home listening rather than the dancefloor.

But as is the natural cycle of this industry, stadiums sell out and then the backlash begins.  And after the backlash, the genre returns to where it began, to flourish anew.  And I watched it flourish again at the launch of Digital Bliss Vol. 1 this week in San Francisco.

The greatest downfall of downtempo electronica or trip-hop has always been an over-arching dependance on a beat and atmospherics, vocal or otherwise.  The victim?  The song itself.  All the swirling electronic sweeps and vocal gymnastics in the world can't hide the lack of discernable narrative, tension-and-release song-structure and the vital ability to emote something within a listener that is rife in independant electronica today.  Happily, these failings are mercifully absent on this CD.

The continuity is a little off from song to song, but being this is a sampler, it does it's job admirably.  The opener from Italian duo Musetta is a pulsating, fully-formed lesson in great electronica.  Kraftwerk-esque beats meld perfectly with a subtle bembe feel.  It's european with a Tropicalia edge and it just feels right.  Although wonderfully delivered and with an exceptionally warm quality, Marinella Mastrosimone's voice takes a back seat to the incredibly funky beat.

In contrast, Return To Mono's "Give Me Something" pushes vocalist Tanya Kelliher's voice to the forefront of the track.  Although the textures of the song benefit from valuable and interesting live instrumentation throughout courtesy of Jim Paulos it's Kelliher's crystalline vocals that carry the track, somehow able to combine incredibly strong delivery while maintaining the overall seductiveness of Return to Mono's sound.

Digital Bliss is the brainchild of Lynda Arnold aka Divasonic and her contribution focuses on the marriage of the organic with the electronic.  An accomplished flautist, Arnold strips down the production here to focus on her strongest assets:  her voice and her flute.  It's this sparcity that makes the track so engaging, taking it's rightful place among this strong collection.

Other standouts include Sutro's "Undying" and "Lowk" by Comfort Food.  Sutro, fronted by former Everthing but the Girl remixer/producer Tyler Stone, were brought together by fearless bay area DJ Polywog at the latter's improv collective "Poly's Playhouses".  The jazz-infused melodies and electro-acoustic beats reveal the group's penchant for improvisation, complementing perfectly the track's themes of search & discovery.

The real discovery (or should I say mystery) here is the track "Lowk".  Rightly saving the best till last (being the last track on the CD, that is), the erratic almost arhythmic beat of "Lowk" rises slowly at the beginning of the track, joined by the thin-ice brittleness of a female voice and eventually coalesces into the song's first third.  Throughout, the jarring, minimalist rhythmic chirpings continue to develop in perfect unison with the rising urgency of the voice, interspersed by a short toy piano solo, until the emotional climax -  and then the song drops off a musical cliff into nothingness.  Astonishing.  

To add to the interest, I can't find a single piece of information about Comfort Food on the internet:  It's like an episode of "Lost"....C'mon guys!  Show yourselves!  You've got yourselves a buyer.
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