Reviewed by: Frans de Ward

The following I had to copy straight from the information: 'The Golden Mean  is perhaps the best known ratio in the world. If one produces a series by adding two consecutive terms to arrive at the next term (0,1,2,3,5,8,13...etc.) then as the numbers increase the factor each term is larger than the previous term approaches it's limit; 1.6180339887... It is this limit that is often called the "Divine Proportion," and it and its reciprocal have been widely drawn upon for inspiration and explanation in the natural sciences, architecture, engineering, art and music." When I was thirteen I failed miserable in my maths, but I have an idea what the Golden Mean is, perhaps because I saw it explained with a painting at hand. Here eleven musicians deal with The Golden Mean, each in their own way. Liner notes explain what they are doing, which makes the non-math guy in me think that this Golden Mean isn't that obvious. Josh Ronsen, a.k.a. Brekexkexkoaxkoax says he didn't succeed in translating
the Golden Mean into music, but still has a track on this compilation, which I thought was pretty funny. I found it hard to follow some of the more conceptually inclined pieces in that sense that I know what they want and what it is about, but do I like to hear them? That might altogether be a different thing. Sine waves of certain frequencies for certain lengths - well, ok... Just like my math books gave me a headache when I was thirteen, the liner notes did pretty much same here, and I started ignoring it, while listening. That did my alpha (or was it beta) head much more right. The artists on this compilation all arrive from the microsound scene and one should be prepared for some lo-fi humming, crackling of field recordings and static sounds. None of the tracks really stood out as being different than another, but then on the other hand it was also difficult to point out the weaker brother in this lot. It all sounded pretty decent to me. Included are Jos Smolders,
Elektronengehirn, Dale Lloyd, Brekexkexkoaxkoax, Toshiya Tsunoda, Dan Warburton, Toy Bizarre, John Kannenberg, Alex Keller, Brent Fariss and Josh Russell. (FdW)