I’ve always loved compilations, especially those featuring relatively unknown acts. Prior to the digital age, compilations were one of the best ways to discover new music. The listener always knew that he or she would be lucky to find one or two tracks worth salvaging, and would then hopefully purchase full albums from the winning artists. Afterwards, compilations would either be recycled or filed away deep in the "Various Artists" section at the bottom of the bookcase. The new millennium has brought us a new way to experience compilations: the same great experience, but without the financial risk. Net Vol. 1 is an eclectic journey around the outer reaches of sound composition, with something for everybody, but with a high probability of turning some people off as well. But that’s okay; the purpose is still to match the artist with the listener, and those who investigate this collection with the ears of pioneers will probably be rewarded for their time. Please keep in mind that what I like, you may not; the point is that there is such variety here, it would be a shame for anyone to skip this hunting expedition.

Sunao Inami starts things off with the cavernous “Fish Print,” a deep-sea drone enhanced by buoy bells and barrel clanks. After two and a half minutes, industrial drums join the proceedings, paving the way for some very odd, anti-melodic synthesizer work. The next layer arrives less than two minutes later: a different, more electronically oriented percussion loop, mixed all the way up front. This sort of track seems a bit stranded, and needs to be heard in the context of a fuller composition. The rest of Inami’s work, while it tends toward the percussive, is more suitable for home listening than for dancing due to its experimental nature, which features many stops and starts, as well as stray abstract passages.

Farmacia’s “Sabanas (Live Only For Us)" begins crudely, with a male vocal sample intoning, “What the …” The sample is pressed, repressed, time-stretched and otherwise modulated as synthesizers gurgle randomly in the background like drunken Benders. While the noise genre does boast a host of visionary composers, this track does not make one want to seek out the rest of the artist’s work. I figured it was my duty to do so anyway, and I am happy to report that the Buenos Aires group does have many more substantial recordings in their discography, and is often much more accessible.

“In the Shell” fares much better, thanks to the Czech Republic’s Metheora. This time out, a different male sample (“Who is this?”) is bolstered by dark ambient drum beats, the big ones that sound like buildings falling. Patterns slowly emerge and form themselves into a coherent song as the piece meticulously turns its head. By the time the track ends, it has honored early haujobb. While haujobb’s later transmissions tended to be watered down, one hopes that a new act will pick up their flag, and Metheora may just be the one to do it. The group has been around for nearly a decade, and really deserves a look from a major label. Metheora, if you’re reading this, get this track to Alfa Matrix!

The quality continues with Station’s “Strangelet,” a less complex piece that nevertheless creates a frisson of mood with minimal effort. Otherworldly waves, seemingly little more than single chords pressed in succession, still manage to build tension. While this piece might work well in a movie such as “Sunshine,” like the Inami track it’s a bit wobbly alone. Still, the track is a lot better than the one that follows; Alessandro Fiorin Damini’s “Radioispirazione I” is little more than a collection of unevenly placed reverberating bursts, whose echoes operate like sonic pings.

“Interieur” is the extremely subdued entry from Kora et Le Mechanix, beginning outside the range of human hearing and gradually building to a quiet drone, dusted with recalcitrant percussion. The track is not as dark as its neighbors and slows the listening experience to a near-crawl. Mark Trimer doesn’t have to do much to re-engage us; his “Orgeo Crux” presents disjointed sonics reminiscent of the bug noises in the movie “Mimic.” We also hear the sound of someone walking on snow, a theme that will be repeated later on the Stuzha track, but with a richer accompaniment. The birds at the end remind us that the track is more of a field recording than a musical piece; but did he really have to shoot them?

Well, now at least the listener is awake again. A good thing, because a train is coming. Selectone’s “Amor Fati” is a wonderfully confusing jumble of sounds. A nice vinyl crackle pervades throughout, joined by the spinning noises and what sounds like a foghorn. Guessing the samples is just part of the fun in listening to this thick composition. Are those windshield wipers? Hail on a hot tin roof? Some enterprising radio station could have a hell of a contest with this piece. Selectone (who also hails from the Czech Republic) was Ressonus’ first signee, and his debut album is also available from the label.

“I am silver and exact; I have no preconceptions,” a woman intones at the beginning of Emdy’s “Mirro.” “Whatever I see I swallow immediately just as it is.” Oh, really? She goes on for another minute, then backs off to allow the sine waves and crackle to take center stage. The sample repeats itself during the last minute of the track. An interesting piece, but not much more, while “The True Path” is Landschaft’s nine-minute ambient entry, a lulling succession of undulations that did little for me, but might be the answer to someone else’s sleeping disorder.

Stuzha’s “Here Is No Life Without a Fire” is the track most listeners will want to hear. This is the first track from his downloadable Through the Snowfield EP, which I’ve been playing with undiminished appreciation all year. This Russian artist (who also records as _Algol_) has recorded a real masterpiece, combining field recordings with sullen, wintry tones to create the sonic equivalent of a 3D movie. The listener is tugged into the recording in such a way as to actually feel the cold. In this track, we hear a man lighting a match, the crackle of a fire, the howling wind outside, the stamping of feet, the rubbing of hands together. The full track on Stuzha’s EP is a minute longer, and draws us further into the panic-stricken world of the shivering protagonist. This is not, however, the best track on the EP, which leads me to believe that the compilers of Net Vol. 1 were often torn between choosing representative tracks and those which meshed better with the compilation’s other selections.

Closing track “3x3x3” is a live recording from Gurun Gurun, but you’d never know it, because there’s no audience noise. Instead, we hear conveyer belt whirrs, factory clinks, repetitive keyboard patterns and swatches of guitar feedback, a lovely way to conclude the sampler. At the end, it seems that someone’s gotten lodged in the jammer, because most of the sounds retreat suddenly, leaving only a few echoes. In the same way, parts of the compilation will echo in the heads of most listeners, who will be happily scurrying to their computers to investigate the full output of their new favorite discoveries.