The very first sounds on Volcano Waves 1-8 drip rapidly and unexpectedly from the speaker, attempting a Chinese acrobat-style balance on the line between pleasant and painful. It sounds at once familiar and menacingly alien. A circling sequence-- of chimy notes that slice like aural paper cuts, and are tweaked just short of dog-whistle pitch-- forms a piercing, trebly melody. A cyborgan heartbeat joins in immediately after, pulsing out a steady a-sharp. This first track, "Agni," issues these thinly veiled threats until, around the fourth minute, another track of discordant keyboard samples and reverbed factory sounds join in to create a decidedly uncomfortable dance-din. Following on its tail, "Plinus Observer" plays good cop to the opener's bad. A bassy keyboard line injects warmth into the harried air even while insect-meets-shortwave-radio sounds keeps things from actually becoming pleasant.

"Camera Magmatica" begins with what sounds like air-raid sirens dropped four octaves, while scratchy blips and bwooop-bwooop sounds form subtle, if psychotic melodic lines. Crackling sounds fill the foreground as the dropped alarm sounds bwooop on. You have the sudden urge to evacuate the premise.

But let's get to who's responsible for this stuff. Retina is the collaborative project of two DJs from Pompeii, Italy. Yes, really: Pompeii, Italy. The cover art, as you can see, makes no attempt to hide that fact, depicting Mt. Vesuvius, Roman ruins, and what I'm guessing is the ash-preserved mummy of some unlucky blast-era resident. The back of the case even features a Roman bust and an amphitheater! So, what's the connection between the Pompeii's sooty, age-old history and electronica? Well, you know the Romans used to say "in blip, Verite."

Actually, both these guys, Lino Monaco and Nicola Buono, grew up working in family businesses that catered to tourists, all the while making frequent forays to Naples record stores to satisfy their passions for New Wave rock and roll. Soon thereafter, they became interested in DJing and electronic music, availed themselves of some analog sequencers and computer software, and the rest is ancient history.

The duo's methodology consists of improvising material in DAT format, later transferring it to computer for editing. I can't say I can sense the improvisatory elements of their music, but the fact alone is quite interesting. Some pieces do sound more warm, and thus "played" as opposed to "composed," than others. The fifth track, "Lander," features some nice rubber band-sort of noises which almost sound like singing. A subtle keyboard playing howling wind noises provides a nice-counterpoint to the rubber bands.

Cuesto no e my cup of tea but it's certainly intriguing. "Piroclastic Flux," the sixth episode, warms up even more. An ascending keyboard part repeats while whirring noises seem to talk from the right speaker. "Insekt" the appropriately titled penultimate track brings back the frenzied tension missing since the opener. Again, we have a stark separation between bassy frequencies of keyboard and pitter-patter, and the multiplicity of trebly, metallic voices jockeying for attention in the foreground. A house-style keyboard part joins in at the three-minute mark, making "Insekt" the most overtly dancy of the tracks.

"Obsidian" the mysteriously evocative closer features a spoon-on-copper-bowl metallic beat and what sounds like a twin-engine airplane circle overhead. Electro-crickets join in no time, rubbing their legs together in perverse imitation of the everyone's favorite bucolic night-time sound. But while this is the most relaxed and relaxing of the eight, it's still fraught with tension and foreboding. Maybe that's what you feel when you live under the shadow of a volcano, who knows? Someone, hurry, play me a fuckin' guitar chord.

-Camilo Arturo Leslie