First Trepok release I review, and it looks like we’re dealing with an electronic label from Swiss, in my book this one of those label that’s worth of a try if you’re in dear old soft, melodic and classy electronic music. IDM-ambient-dj materials with a really easy-listening feel or with a blatant pop-hook like in the case of Eiko, you’ve people from allover Europe since you’ve projects coming from Norway, Italy, Swiss, Portugal, France, etc. But given for granted we couldn’t care less about the geographical location of an artist unless he/she’s good and we’re dealing with a bunch of good songs here. I think you probably know some artists featured here like Philip Petit or Vitor Joaquim, but shame of me I didn’t know that much about the majority of the other musicians. The fact is beside some steady tempo tracks, among the soft experimental sound and the post-ambient, IDM influences you’ve something that starts right where samplers like Warp’s glorious "Artificial Intelligence" left off, the comparison is addressed to those of you that are into indie-tronica, or to those who miss the soft touch of Warp electronic-ambient heyday. As you already know I’ve never been that much into samplers, but this an homogenous and relaxing listening, that’s exactly what you probably look for when approaching a various artist compilation like this.

Portuguese multimedia artist Vitor Joaquim has traced a singular path over the last 25 years starting with improvised music in 1982 and then composing for dance, theater, cinema, video, installations and multimedia. "Flow" is his latest work on the Crónica label. The main concept here is the confrontation between voice and computer and in almost all the tracks we can find heavily processed breathings and whispers among the swarming layers of processed instruments or even a sensual female voice(Filipa Hora's) as in the second track. Ranging from dissonant glitch to languid and dreamlike sounds with bursts of high-speed grainy loops - "Flow" is a complex work, only sometimes indulging in melodic moments. A fresh update to Markus Popp's lesson and surely a perfect listening for the autumn and winter to come.

This time for none can say Crònica hasn't been followed a sort of ideal unexspresive thread for its last releases and with an interesting result. Also Ginta K can be filed in that same grey area where you could also meet Vitor Joaquim I mean somewhere abstract melodies e microstructures. Considerably different from his label mate Ginta K is more focussed on minimal electronics bastardised with microwave sounds all mixed in a really soft texturr. Lengvai (the first cd) features five sketches of rhythmical but yet minimal electronic music with a definite post echno feel. Kaptavicious taste for proportion has the undoubtfully quality of duelling to save everything from getting boring without falling in the compistional trap of hyperstructures. This cd is far from being immediate, infact I think the more you listen to it the more you tune your ears to his hidden qualities but at last isn't that the real essence of minimal electronic music (Yoshihiro Hanno for exemple). This self described as containing "Colourful Hypnotizing beats" and that's true but going to the second cd it all changes. "60 x one minute audio colours of 2kHz sound" is developed around a 2kHz frequency that keeps changing minutes after minute, it's a creative study/work based on a minimal but yet interesting idea that many would describe as microsound. The result is quite good for both of the cd and the second one is undoubtfully interesting but I still prefer the "Longvai" one.

Cronica is back with a couple of releases, a better exposure and the usual good quality of their outputs just to say that if you haven't noticed that, Portugal like Spain is an epicentre for what concerns electronic music nowadays. As you can see from their back catalogue Cronica is not one of those label into "easy electronic" at every coast, but more 360° oriented and this cd is the proof of it all. Vitor Joaquim pushes on the pedal of experimental/abstract electronic music and the result is probably closer to sound art than to ordinary electronic recording. Cold inexpressive music right from the first intentions, Joaquim put every single layer trying to define gradually every chapter. A profusion of resonators, high frequencies and glitchy beats and synthesized vocals (be it a vocoder or a laptop) but the record is really tight and compact sound wise. "Flow" comes out from that experimental electronic music that floats nowhere in the middle of contemporary electronic research post Stockhausen and isolationism a-la late eighties early nineties. Probably it's just me but the closest reference that came to my mind was Main above all when the band post-Loop was completely lost in abstraction. This cd feature an interesting clip with which the music of Joaquim gets along really well, it’s a soft and simple computer work but it has a strange manga atmosphere while the global watching is stoning.