artist: Beatsystem country of origin: UK style(s): Experimental ambient, environmental, avant-garde essential releases: Beatsystem (1997, Emit Records)

Generally regarded as the most abstract release from the legendary Emit Records first era (1992-1998), Beatsystem is an involving and surprisingly soulful listen although it's rarely "beaty" despite composer Derek Pierce's choice of pseudonym.

Beatsystem's music is sound collage, not only with an intelligent structure that knits it all together but also possessed of a real humanity. His way with Deep South gospel samples, for example, shows a composer with a gift for re-contextualising without destroying. "No More" lifts blues slide guitar and gospel vocal bytes out of their natural home and puts them in more surreal surroundings and, if anything, deepens their poignancy.

In the classical avant-garde they would probably call this album musique concrete; certainly Pierce is a big enough fan of John Cage to include the late composer's manipulated voice on several tracks. Don't worry: the occasional jolting sounds and squalls of distortion aside, this is contemporary ambient and more listenable than most of Cage's tape experiments. Imagine wandering alone through a huge multi-story, multi-coloured museum where not only the exhibits but the very architecture come alive and tell stories, even if those stories don't have traditional beginnings and endings.

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