*** Porter Ricks/Techno Animal

SYMBIOTICS

(Force Inc./Mille Plateaux)

Experimental-music fans can double their pleasure with Symbiotics, an appetizing collaboration of sorts by two premier exponents of post-dub noise. Porter Ricks is the assumed name for ambient auteur Thomas Koner and compadre Andy Mellwig; the Techno Animal line-up comprises avant-rock veterans Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and Kevin Martin (Ice, the Bug, God, and compiler of the Isolationism and Macro-Dub Infection series). Both acts specialize in post-millennial hydrogen disco -- sparse, sulfurous soundtracks for a depopulated dance floor. Porter Ricks, who originally recorded for the phenomenal post-dub techno label Channel Reaction, uses subtle chiaroscuro shading to craft subtle, implied dance music. The opening track, "Polytoxic 1," crafts rhythms out of speaker fuzz and what sounds like a sandblaster and the machinations of an oil rig; "Polytoxic 2" reverberates with an epileptic bass line, and "Phosphoric" is little more than a bare digital hum. "Ionic" ventures the closest of Symbiotics's eight cuts to conventional techno.

Techno Animal specialize in hybrid junkyard funk -- groove music created from industrial detritus. "Hydroxoid" is distinguished by a superb, funky bass line. "Anthrazite" gets post-industrial goodfoot with a JB-style groove and guitar dissonance. And "Bio-morphium" mixes jazz bass, metal machine feedback, and vinyl scratches into an unlikely jamboree.

-- Patrick Bryant