As in any explosion of creative endeavor, you can also expect to find a lot of mediocrity. But fear not, this crowded genre includes some startling gems too.

ORBITAL DECAY: Splashdown (CD on Smashed Systems Recordings)

A Philadelphia-based band that exemplifies this rich and melodic genre, producing astral music that evokes deep space with atmospheric approaches and a majestic flair.

In this self-released CDR, dense keyboard riffs blend into cyclic melodies, punctuated by severe tonalities that command attention. Peacefully surging patterns swoop and cavort, expanding the themes with tangents that elaborate the musical flow. Looped rhythms accrete, layer by layer, enhanced by shrilly frolicking riffs that segue into urgent passages of breathtaking grandeur. Stretching into epic structures, the riffs merge, generating even greater vistas of sonic awe.

During a 28-minute epic piece, the velocity of the aural ascension reduces to a more pensive state, drifting in a cloud of seething energy. Then the music surges with growling, swelling with an intensity that explodes like a sun going nova. Cybernetic screams and flashing electronics fill the mix, as if coalescing from the solar explosion. As the sonic state returns to a calm, a few of these reshaped sounds recur, finding comfortably passive roles in the wind-down.

This 39-minute CD features a pair of tunes recorded live back in 1979 and 1980.

ORBITAL DECAY: Orbital Decay (CD on Smashed System Recordings)

After nearly two decades of inactivity, Orbital Decay returns with a 47-minute CD of fresh music, circa 1999. Surviving members Terry Furber and Scott Watkins generate a selection of five shorter pieces (ranging from 13 to 6 minutes long) that will delight and inspire the discriminating electrophile.

This time, the compositions are crisper, achieving increased power from their compression. The mix is thick and intricate, melodic with a layered sound. The presence of space guitar enhances Orbital Decay's sound with stunning effect -- not only with astral tones, but with overt outbursts that sear with passion and exclamation.

The tunes are dynamic and energetic here, full of surging keyboard cycles and synthesizer riffs. Devoid of any percussives, this music maintains a powerful pace with intertwining patterns. Rich electronics undulate through slowburns that sparkle and engulf the listener. Powerful melodies are delivered with a delicate frenzy.

One is forced to mention the guitar again, since the brilliant space pyrotechnics play such a diligent and integral part in the music this time out. With piercing notes and rapid fingerwork, the guitar calls from a great distance, wailing through the celestial nebula to scream with an emotional voice. The effect is quite gripping, bordering on Frippertronic as much as on the classic Tangerine Dream mold.

TEAM METLAY: Ballistic (double CD on Atomic City)

Representing a merging of numerous independents for a secret jam session in Florida back in the mid-1990s, this Team Metlay release features the talents of: Carl Brenner, DAC Crowell, Eirikur Hallgrimsson, Joe McMahon, Mike Metlay, John Rossi, Nick Rothwell, Adam Schabtach, David Turner, and Steve Verity.

There is a total of 135 minutes of music on this double CD release, with the music broken into two sections: Trajectory and Impact. As one might expect, Trajectory possesses a more ethereal quality, while Impact features an agitated tension in the selections.

Team Metlay produce a delicate auralscape, conjuring space through more somber moods and softer electronic melodics. Deep bass tones set a dramatic air that is propelled by percussives and grand piano and a multitude of synthesizers and even some innovative guitarwork. Utilizing a more abstract structure, this music blends elements of modern, new age, classical, experimental, and even a hint of blues to create a global village unity of sounds for this excursion through the void ... a sonic journey headed for a dangerous collision with a planet you know and love.

(Of notable mention, Team Metlay have an earlier CD release on Atomic City called "Bandwidth" that is highly recommended. Meanwhile, project organizer Metlay himself has a 18-minute CD EP called "Band of Fire", also on Atomic City, which features a wonderful slowbuild of electronic layers that reaches a satisfying epic quality.)

OZMA: A Huge and Silent Place (CD on Atomic City)

Ozma is Mike Metlay and DAC Crowell, both integral components of Team Metlay.

The title "huge and silent place" is deep space, far beyond the regions surrounding our solar system. This is space music in an absolute sense: atmospheric pulses are littered with distant spatial effects, lending the subtle touch of a spacecraft present in the astral region.

Delicate electronics unfold like sheets of black velvet, a solar flare bursts forth to exhale a sonic sparkle across the auralscape. Lazy rhythms are maintained by synthetic growls and heavenly sweeps that stir the ambient space from any tedious lassitude. The music remains passive without losing its lurking strength. There's even a luscious passage livened by crystalline tinkling.

Deceptively melodic throughout its slowburn, this music is truly evocative of drifting in outer space, slowly approaching each fresh foreign cosmic anomaly with an analytical sense of wonder. For 62 minutes, you will ride the winds of space in ten pieces strung together to produce a gradual accretion of tension as the songs grow darker and more agitated towards the relaxed crescendo.

A superb dose of soft electronic music that will appeal to fans of Cluster, Steve Roach or early '70s Tangerine Dream.