The Complete 10-inch Series From Cold Blue by (CB0014)

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For those of us hunkered down on the East Coast of the US, the start of 2004 has been an endurance test of Arctic proportions. As I sit in Boston with the baseboard pipes gurgling, I just read in the local paper that this past January was the most brutal on record for the city since 1888. There is little that gives relief when the winter grows to be this icy gray and desperate. However, for this season there is 'The Complete 10-Inch Series from Cold Blue', a three-CD retrospective compilation that offers some medicinal warmth without soaring prematurely into the sticky, suffocating humidity of the New England summer.

Seven composers are represented on this collection, which began life in the early 1980s as a string of 10-inch albums put out by the Cold Blue label to showcase the diverse, airy soundworld coming out of the West Coast at the time. Among the most compelling pieces are two that have no music at all. Read Miller's 'Mile Zero Hotel' and 'The Blueprint of a Promise' are based on the text from postcards found at garage sales. In 'Mile Zero Hotel' multiple voices read the material in a monotone, almost somnambular, fashion, producing a kind of haunting, echoing construction. 'The Blueprint of a Promise' only has one singsong voice directing the flow, but with equally hypnotic effect.

Chas Smith's four offerings for pedal steel guitar and 12-string dobro (a mechanically amplified guitar) are the warmest of the bunch, probably because they come the closest to the traditional sound of Western heat and loneliness - the ambient resonance of the desert. On 'After', 'Santa Fe' and 'October '68' Smith pulls the country twang of guitar strings like taffy, stretching the sound into a nighttime, folksy drone, full of starlight and sand. His final piece, 'Scircura', is more playful than the rest, relying on a cadence of repetitive, melodious guitar plucking that builds into a shimmering dance over a 12-minute period.

The rest of the compilation displays the same disparate, alluring inventiveness. Other highlights include Michael Jon Fink's fragile compositions for piano and cello; Peter Garland's six Mexican-infused dances for violins and gourd rattles; and Barney Childs' lively yet at times dissonant 'Clay Music' for clay wind instruments. There is a lot to take in here, and even after many repeated listens you can still find arrangements and melodies you didn't notice before, most likely because the discs pull you in immediately, seducing you to simply listen and experience. It's a nice change of pace to let something so comfortable and inviting wash over and envelope you, soothing the effects of the bitter cold and emotional frostbite. Thankfully, 'The Complete 10-Inch Series from Cold Blue' helps make the wait for spring less oppressive.