Some songs take time expanding and contracting in order to set a certain tone and demeanor for the music and the band playing the music. Some songs are just long. The title track on Sterilized manages to be both: the eclectic interweaving of funk beats, sitar, tabla, violin and turntable scratches stretch out in a minimalist loop, but at over 19 minutes in length, the loop can make you a little dizzy.

Dizziness is the theme for the latest Doug Scharin project. Call it trip-hop. Call it acid jazz. Call it world music through a Bill Laswell lens. No label you stick on these attention- craving ambient creations will get you noticing them in anything more than passing.

On "Nut," a longing violin and clumsy guitar bounce around each other like they're afaid to make eye contact. Dawn McCarthy sings as if she's struggling to focus through an opium haze on "Shift." The funk rhythm returns for "Jam Jar Superstar," in which a gurgling optigon is the most substantial of a satchel full of loops.

The last track, "Navajos," starts out like new-age mercenaries make Native American music sound on relaxation tapes. When I say start out, I mean the first three long minutes of this 16- minute meditation. The rest takes its time building into yet another getdown live rhythm. Then some guitars crash the party and they have to call the new-age flutist back in to restore order. As if all hell had broken loose in the first place.

It's not that any of these tracks are poorly arranged, it's just that the beginnings and ends are too arbitrary. Anything here could be used as a mood- setting movie instrumental accompanying one of those PG-13 sex scenes that cuts straight from foreplay to aftermath: you get a lot of buildup, but no climax.

-Shan Fowler