"Various Artists - Interiors" Invisible Records INV 7001 1998 (72:15)
ELpH "Gnomic Verses" (5:05)
Project Dark "Spring of Thigh's Rest" (9:53)
Mick Harris "No Stoic Dub" (8:42)
Screwtape "Tongs" (4:23)
Tactile "Undine" (9:17)
Gold Water "Fractured Break" (5:49)
Antonym "Frost Lay Upon the Earth" (7:39)
Creature Box "Horse Startled by Lightning" (5:42)
Mika Vainio "Novobrisk" (3:31)
Spacemaker "Impossible Geometry" (4:15)
COH "C is for Sleep" (7:00)
Little Annie "Thirteen Things I did Today" (:59)
ELpH is Coil, Project Dark are Ashley Davies and Kirsten Reynolds (with Dub Colossus on this track), Mick Harris is also known for his work in Lull and Scorn, Screwtape is Drew McDowall of Coil, Tactile are John Everall and Teresa Mills, Gold Water is John Roome (Witchman), Antonym is Anthony Burnham, Creature Box is a collaboration between members of Eyeless in Gaza and members of Tactile, Mika Vainio is known from Panasonic, Spacemaker is John Everall, COH is Ivan Pavlov and Little Annie is Annie Anxiety (with music by John Everall).
Overall impression: ok. UK experimental label Sentrax has now been added to the growing list of labels (Alleysweeper, Cyber-Tec America, Possible) who've worked out distribution deals with Invisible Records, and this is their first release via that arrangement. "Interiors" is a pretty varied collection of work that covers ambient to drum n' bass and everything in between. "Gnomic Verses" is a typical minimal sound excursion that would fit right in on ELpH vs Coil "Worship the Glitch", "Spring of Thigh's Rest" is a nice long dark drum 'n bass piece, "No Stoic Dub" is a beatless ambient sound collage, "Tongs" is a nice bass driven Coil-like track (that I wish was about 10 minutes longer and a bit more developed), "Undine" is a beatless wash of stereo panned lightly distorted sound, "Fractured Break" is a very nice slo-mo dark ambient breakbeat thang, "Frost Lay Upon the Earth" is a somewhat random collage of miscellaneous distorted sounds, "Horse Startled by Lightning" is a unique bass and beat driven number, "Novobrisk" sounds like every other Panasonic track I've heard, "Impossible Geometry" is a repetitive reverbed drum machine pattern with minimal keyboard backing, "C is for Sleep" is essentially one big LFO loop with occasional tones and thumps, and "Thirteen Things I did Today" is just that, Annie Anxiety delivering a short spoken piece over a minimal sound backing. All in all a nice collection of varying styles of music and a nice introduction to several artists. Several tracks are a bit too "experimental" (read "boring") for my liking. Standout tracks IMO: "Spring of Thigh's Rest", "No Stoic Dub", "Tongs", "Fractured Break" and "Horse Startled by Lightning". I'll be keeping an eye out for a few of these artists' proper releases in the next few years ...