Region Zero is a Boltfish Recordings sampler featuring previously released Boltfish artists and many new signings.
The title of this collection reflects its eclectic style and international flavour - artists based in the UK, Japan, Thailand, France, Norway and the USA, producing various hybrid forms of organic electronic music from indietronics to breakbeat techno.

Bal-a-klah-va start the compilation off with "Anamorph", which instantly gives off visions of empty spaces and abandoned city centres, with its atmospheric throwings. The subtle electro style is backed up with snappy drumbeats, and a synthesizer cascade of a backing melody,all wrapped up with almost speech like mumblings flittering around in the distance. Quality electronics. "Disorder" by Zainetica begins with tiny marching animals, crossing a frozen lake with their feet giving off an almost glass shattering clicky aura. A rolled out vocoded vocal, seems to skim around your ears, from one to another, as the thought inducing melody dunks you in and out of the freezing water, to keep you fresh. Good stuff.

Cheju runs us through a shredder with soft furry like teeth, and then chucks you down a waterfall into the jelly like pool below, its time for "Camellia". Pure ambient spells with Soo Lee on vocals, that just adds that aspect of intrigue to the release, whilst Karmoy takes us to a synthetic beach with "Klem". The track gradually begins to reveal itself as a rich green pastured soundtrack, to a minature super deformed character on a mission to save his kingdom from the evil presence in them thar mountains. Quality technocised electronica. "Sticklebrick" symphony by Ochre begins with what almost sounds like an 80's science fiction soundtrack outing, full of plodding synth presses, but then develops into a self illuminating sphere of gorgeous colours, with a smooth but still deep bassline, that carries you along on a blanket of stars. This track gives off that feeling of time spent, meticously programming away in a darkened room somewhere. Amazing stuff.
J-Auer unleash "Starlight" into your eyes via a small slide, and stand back to see the results. The result is a beat led, bassline smiling weapon, with three barrels and five grenade launchers, all waiting to fire some creative goodness into the fold. Now its time for Sveto the fool to show us what he is made of with "Con ot nu". Revealing from behind a small red curtain, the track is an industrial explosion fuelled mission, with ground shattering bass strikes and the whirrings of many a factory droid attempting to keep this machine in tip top condition. The breaks during the day are full of heavy shoot em up vibes, which keep the workers on form for the afternoon ahead. Banging stuff to robot 2.

Richard Houghten takes it down a level with the gorgeous acoustic guitar adventure "Untitled #3" which gives off the vibes of far eastern culture, whilst Mint's "Growing Older" takes us back to the days of exploration, with this awe inspiring track, full of new horizons and telephonic murmurings that develop into an almost honey like flow of machined percussion, that just cannot fail to excite your brain. Quality. "Thunder theatre for collapsing nation" by Countripsyde, shows you what happens within their neck of the woods, with sunshine creating guitar melodies, and crunched distorted radio vocals, all blended in with more rich static that binds this one together. Weird and interesting. The final track on this journey into Boltfish land is by BBWax with "Morning Glory". This sumptous wandering into a hidden room, full of angelic murmurings and kept alive with a static pulse, really does the job of tying this excellent release up. Good stuff.

Boltfish are fast becoming one of those labels, where each release is a must have. What makes it even sweeter is, you can download their releases for free. Region Zero takes the label to another level, and will get people noticing how good their output is.

Head over to www.boltfish.co.uk now and grab this release asap. You could also purchase this amazing release on cd for the crazy price of £4.50 including p&p, as it does come in a very nice digipak. Whilst your there take a listen to the previous ep releases as well, all good stuff.

Highly recommended.

Sam