VAST - Jon Crosby

Only one day after naming The Bowling Green's One Pound Note best CD so far this year arrives this excellent self-titled release from Jon Crosby's VAST.

It's the debut from the 21-year old Humboldt County native who was mentioned in Guitar Player magazine as someone to watch, while just 13, and features everything from backing vocals by real-life Benedictine monks and a Bulgarian female choir all the way through to an 18-piece orchestra embellished with some of the best guitar work you're likely to hear all year.

But lets face it, all we're interested in here at electronicmusic.com is the electronic stuff, so how does that fit in? Well, for one thing it's not plastered on the side like an afterthought, which is often the case when labels try to get the millions of techno types out there to listen to their hopelessly dated guitar rockers. Instead it's woven, no strike that, embedded into the very foundation of the music itself, which isn't surprising seeing as Crosby was enduring the wrath of jaded resident sound engineers for playing his synth based music while all around grunge reigned in early nineties San Francisco

Rating - 910,922 (out of a possible 1,000,000)