Texas is no doubt best known for punk rock, blues and country music, not electronic music. Exponential, however, have bucked the trend by releasing this compilation of glitch hop, downtempo and IDM tracks from the south central region of the US.

Launched in 2000, by musician Ernest Gonzalez, the label has quickly built a small roster of amenable DJs and producers, and this release perhaps warrants further seal of approval.

One of the label’s most memorable artists, A.M. Architect opens the compilation in style with Unspoken, a brooding electronic track with gritty broken beats and glistening melodies – it’s the mournful guitar chords that really make the track though – an excellent opener.

Horizontal K follows with a tidy glitch hop instrumental, followed by Dance Like Robots thrashing guitar effort, We Were Vampires. Guitar features prominently on a number of the opening tracks, but make no mistake, this is a strictly electronic album, not electro-acoustic.

Rae Davis’ Pyramids keeps the album varied, a delicious downtempo track, with a fluid bass line offset by pan pipes and spliced vocal cut ups – Diego Chavez’ short and sweet Forgive is in much the same vein.

By now the compilation has settled in to a steady downtempo groove, with Wayside Dream (Catch as Catch Can) and Ernest Gonzalez’s pretentiously titled, Caviar, Cigarettes, Dynamite & Laserbeams. Proceedings slow to a crawl by the time we reach Nectarine’s Blue Beacon – if I’m honest the song writing becomes slightly less appealing as the compilation progresses, the tracks preferring to focus on atmosphere and melancholy soundscapes, which are nevertheless quite earthy and well constructed. Mirm ends the compilation blissfully on the closing Kan-Sha.

All in all, an intelligent, varied compilation of mostly downtempo tracks from a label showing many signs of early promise – I would certainly recommend this.