How come so few Americans have made interesting electronic music for home listening purposes? I am aware of Detroit, yes, and then there's the stray Matmos or Kid606, and the near-monopoly on hip-hop. These things must be taken into account. But there are 280 million people in the United States. We are world leaders in technology. We are lousy with natural resources. Add it all up, and it just doesn't make sense that the kids of Western Cologne Middle School could hang with our nation's best.

I'm exaggerating a bit here to make a point: The term "rock and roll fantasy" still has a very tangible meaning on these shores, and laptops are not yet a part of our rock and roll dream. Guitar shops in the United States still sell guitars, and let's not forget the fact that we have yet to produce a generation of electronic music mentors. In sum, the pool of talent in the United States remains comparatively thin.

Which is just one of the reasons why Mike Martinez' debut as Electric Birds was such a pleasant surprise. Here was an accomplished electronic record that slid effortlessly between styles (glitch, ambient, drone, pop). And it came from the States. The soft and pretty vibe of the album aligned it more with Japanese musicians like Neina and Sosumu Yokoto than anything coming out of Europe, which was natural considering that Martinez is based on the West coast. Now comes his follow-up, Panorama.

It's difficult for me to tell if my disappointment in this record has to do with my narrow expectations not being met or an actual decrease in quality. It reminds me of the problem I initially had with Mouse on Mars' Niun Niggung. At the time of the 1999 import release, I was convinced that it was the band's worst record. Listening to it recently, I remembered that it came out at a time when I was deep into Glam and Instrumentals, and I wanted desperately for them to continue in this ambient vein. So my reaction had more to do with what I wanted out of the record specifically than it did with the quality of the music. I've since approached it on its own terms and found it increasingly rewarding.

Certainly, the overall tone on Panorama is very different than the self-titled record. While that album moved effortlessly between Oval-style cut-ups, all-consuming guitar washes and indie vocal tracks, the mood here is very consistent. All of these tracks were pieced together with a similar blueprint, one based very clearly on loops. I listen to instrumental electronic music roughly 60% of the time, and oddly, I find myself increasingly irritated by extreme repetition.

Each of these tracks consists of anywhere from 4 to 7 different sound patterns, set in motion one after another. The sounds are painstakingly constructed and often very beautiful, but there's a certain dynamic missing, a sense of building and tearing down. On Electric Birds' debut was a fantastic track called "Finger & Stroke" that gradually slid from a warm drone into chaotic noise. It's that sense of development that's missing from most of the tracks on Panorama.

But maybe the sounds here are what the record is about. They're certainly more elegant and lush than anything on the last album. My favorite track here is the first (don't you hate it when that happens?), the sweet and lovely "Avocet (Panorama Mix)." I'm reminded of how the minimalists influenced German proto-techno in this track, as the repeating xylophone-sounding synth patch distills the finest moments of the Tangerine Dream songbook into one hypnotic sequence, with some on-time drum programming bringing the style into the 21st century underneath.

"A Green Frost" is the richest of Panorama's ambient tracks, completely fulfilling Mike Martinez' stated goal of creating music that works like a picture. Everything in the song flows in slow motion, splashes of viscous liquid creating droplets that hang mid-air forever. Several track explore percussion loops and samples with less success. "Terra Forms" combines the sound of slowly shifting machine gears with clicks and deep drones but fails to conjure a mood. "Repercussions" is based on some interesting drum samples but never really catches fire.

Martinez seems most comfortable here on "Black Oceans," which owes something to San Francisco's glitch-house scene. It starts with swirling liquid sounds and eventually brings in a light house groove reminiscent of the Orb. Many of these tracks feel stuck somehow between the song-oriented and sound-oriented worlds. Martinez' trick on the debut was to just to jump around and make each track its own thing. Panorama sacrifices some of that eclecticism for unity. It's a good record, but I can't help but feel a little let down after what came before.

-Mark Richard-San