Russia has always been a darker plot in a map of industrial sounds for me despite the size of this country. Sometimes one or several interesting projects appears from there that draws your attention, but when looking at the whole picture, it seems that not that much information goes outside or so. It seems that it's enough for a musician to make a release CDr of edition of a dozen or netrelease and that's enough. Maybe I'm wrong and my channels of information are oriented towards other directions and this is the case. I don't know. In this release, representing Russian ambient scene and compiled for "Bruit de la Neige" festival, we find 12 electronic projects. I really liked some of the tracks and had difficult times listening to some others. As an addition to these, there are musicians that were simply not interesting and it's hard to remember their tracks. Though some titles of projects were known from here or there, I remember listening to only a couple of them. Album is started with highly reverbed abstraction by Kolpakopf called Kälte. A rather long track and not too interesting to keep attention, but it was a rather decent start. Second track is by Bardoseneticcube - the project that I've known best of all the participators. This trio can surprise you with excellent atmosphere and good sound in one release and they can release absolute tedium next. As for their composition in this compilation - it's also highly reverbed field recording with somewhat weirdly uncomfortable woman's voice. There exist more interesting tracks by Bardoseneticcube, but all in all, the mood is caught and it's good. Culmination of the album for me was with the third track - Exit In Grey - 999. Very beautiful, dreary and cold drone/dark ambient imperceptibly reminding me of Kammarheit and co. Slow development of melody, subtle touches of field recordings and gloomy, gray soundscapes. Truly excellent, I'd say the track was even too short. After listening to these I've noted to myself not to forget to check for other releases of this duo. Playing next - Cisfinitum. If I understand it correctly - live recording. Lighter and far weaker than the one by Exit In Grey. Further in the album there are mostly tracks that didn't interest me or didn't make any impression. Somehow instinctively I wanted to skip artists entitled CD-R or Moscow Laptop Orchestra (though sounds of CD-R weren't that bad). As for Kryptogen Rundfunk, though the track had moments that sounded rather interesting, but my oh my, the track named "No Hamsters Were Harmed During The Recording Of This Song"... No comments. As an addition to these, there are several academic musicians whose empty sounds simply passed by. Well, it's normal for compilation to have stronger and weaker artists, more interesting and emptier sounds. Anyways, it was interesting to take a peek to Russian scene and happenings in it. Thanks goes to Monochrome Vision for such a possibility.

Format: CD
Released: 2007
Label: Monochrome Vision