Various: Involve compilation

By REBECCA BARRY

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Geography is the inspiration behind this bleakly beautiful compilation but sleep seems a more accurate muse. Bevan Smith (the ambient experimentalist Signer) compiled the tracks from artists around the world whose warm, dreamy music finds poetry in repetition and minimalism, not dissimilar to Iceland's Sigur Ros. These aren't songs in the traditional sense but hypnotic pieces hinged on mind-numbingly simple ideas, drawn out by sprawling soundscapes, random noise bursts and dusky vocals.

While most of the album is a tribute to atmospherics — as Andrew Thomas' ebbing and flowing A Dream of a Spider demonstrates, with its crackling vinyl and evocative synths — others create rhythm with more abstract effect, such as Signer's Void Interior, which sounds like metal doors clanging together then echoing into the distance. Guitars also filter through some of the more lo-fi tracks, reminiscent at times of the sonorous droning of Bailter Space.

In the nicest possible way, this could just be the perfect antidote for insomniacs.

Label: Capital Recordings/Involve Records