The finale ...

40. Adam X - On the One and Two. I already own an Adam X mix album and I wasn't clamouring for another. But the story on the back cover was just so inspiring. He talks about wanting to put together a mix album that accurately summed up his life and the kind of person he is, so he spent days deciding which twenty or so of his several thousand records would make the cut and help to tell the story he wanted to tell ... it's a list/compilation story that hit close to the heart. Oh yeah, the track selection is nothing to complain about either. How's the mixing, the EQ work, you ask? Mind your manners! How inappropriate -- it's a man's life we're talking about here, those details are (relatively) unimportant. B, $3.95, M.

41. Various Artists - Soundstyle compilation. It was a beautiful white CD cover, a digipak with a slightly glossy finish. The artwork was plain, but far from ordinary. Just three small crosses (plus signs, +, actually) centred on the cover, one red, one white and one blue. Three crosses, tiny amongst the vast expanse of CD cover whiteness, like three small fawns lost in a cavernous meadow underneath a cloudless blue sky. And the spine depicted these same three crosses and nothing more -- still so gentle in their stoic tranquility, still lost and lonely underneath the expansive heavens. Deep in my guts, I felt, I knew, I was certain that fine music was contained within. So I gave this disc a home amongst all the others, in a basket among many. Not to become an anonymous piece of art among hundreds of other discs, but part of a CD family that would nurture it and ensure that it would never be lonely again, for now, and forevermore.

There was just one thing. I had NO IDEA what music was on it. This was a first -- buying a CD even though I didn't know what it was.

I have chosen many a cool techno record based on design alone (but I listened before buying, which is impossible in Amoeba). Generally, I look for simple artwork without bells and whistles. In this case, the price was certainly right for taking a chance. It turned out to be a perfectly decent downtempo house compo. There were full credits for the tracks themselves, but basically nothing about who compiled it besides the name "soundstyle". Whoever did compile it wrote about the tracks representing a journey through a 24 hour day. Uh, OK. But overall, with the minimal everything (credits, packaging, liner notes) they've let the music speak for itself, which is a perfectly sound strategy. A, $1.43, M.

42. Mount Florida - Arrived Phoenix. The first time through, I completely missed it. It's indietronic, then it's dub, then there's some vocals, then some ambient bits; I must have forgotten what I was listening to. On the second time through, I pieced it together. "Yes, I remember this part now ... damn, I didn't realize this was all part of the same CD". Nothing too special, but certainly unpredictable and definitely not boring. Obviously, it makes for good background music too. A, $1.43, M.

43. The Rip-Off Artist - Pump. The Rip-Off Artist spent many months of his life on an offshore oil rig, and this album is a tribute/remembrance/momument to healing the pyschological scars regarding those difficult times. The sounds on this album were taken from that environment. I can only assume that "Pump" is to offshore oil rigs what Akufen's "My Way" is to the radio. Both microsampled albums were released around the same time, which makes me wonder why this one got so much less attention. Where Akufen relies mainly on the 4/4 beat to make his point, the Rip-Off Artist strays into far more abstract territory, closer to Autechre's LP5 than anything playing at a microhouse club night near you. Well, I guess I just answered the question I posed two sentences ago. You also have to pay attention to keep up over the course of its 69 tracks.

That number is no coincidence, for the liner notes explain the sexual tension inside people essentially stranded so far from their mates. "[Pump] is a story of love, petroleum, and sex. A world in which hard iron meets soft earth, and deep pressures are relieved". Think about that before you use both "Make Love Not War" and "No War for Oil" at your next outdoor protest. D, $1.62, M.

44. Dave Tarrida - Paranoid. It's on Tresor. Therefore it is good. That's all you need to know.

OK, I liked it better than the Subhead disc. It's way more cranium-busting. D, $1.52, M.

SUMMARY: An amazing 10 E, 30 M, and only 4 L. Only two discs cost more than eight bucks, only seven cost more than five bucks, and fifteen cost less than TWO bucks. Now I've got to find a place to put all this stuff ...