When Jenny Scheinman was invited by John Zorn to record an album for the Radical Jewish Culture series on his New York-based Tzadik label, the bicoastal violinist told a Bay Area journalist she would have to give careful consideration to the process of translating philosophical intention into composition. Keeping tabs on one's own motivation is hard enough; discerning purpose in someone else's art should probably daunt critics even more than it does. But if Scheinman's aim was to express her Jewish identity as both a wellspring of traditional themes and a cultural filter for her jazz sensibilities, then she has succeeded on her own terms and also made a place for herself as a true original alongside such Radical Jewish composers as Zorn, Steven Bernstein, Jewlia Eisenberg, Anthony Coleman, and David Krakauer, among others.

In this latest work – which follows her CDs Giant Trio (1996), Django Project (1998), and Live at Yoshi's (2000), as well as major roles in Charming Hostess, the Scott Amendola Band, and the Hot Club of San Francisco – Scheinman shapes folk-derived melodies into long, elegant legato lines she colors with gorgeous dark timbres. Trumpeter Russ Johnson and guitarist Adam Levy play off the same ideas but with distinctive interpretive approaches, creating mildly hallucinatory effects, as either Greg Cohen or Trevor Dunn, on bass, plumbs deeper into the pulses and harmonies and as Kenny Wolleson works over his drum kit with brushes and sticks in unpredictable patterns to inject elements of whimsy into the predominant wistfulness. Inspired by the story of a rabbi's young, androgynous lover whose "magnetic warmth" deepened wedding-goers' "sense of belonging," the songs, both original and traditional, deftly employ minor keys, enchanting counterpoints, varied rhythms, and elastic textures to explore the ambiguous territory between melancholy and joy. Making that realm a real and enriching place to dwell is Scheinman's triumph. (Derk Richardson)

Various artists
Misery Loves Company (Ersatz Audio)

While most '80s revivalists treat their digital time travels like little more than fun, carefree joyrides, Detroit's Adult. has made its name by injecting its electro retrospection with a serious sense of impending doom. It's unsurprising, then, that Misery Loves Company – the latest robodisco comp conceived, compiled, and released by the group's Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller – is, as the title of their contribution suggests, the duo's own "Paranoid Vision." What is surprising, however, is that despite a dozen other artists contributing, the album manages so successfully to actualize that singular vision.

Like Ghostly International's semirecent Tangent 2002 compilation, the highly stylized 'n' sterilized Misery is rooted in the disco nouveau of the early '80s. But while both albums share a handful of acts – Adult., DMX Krew, Charles Manier, Solvent and Lowfish – the cold, mechanized retrofuturism of Misery is infinitely darker and starker than its predecessor's delirious dance-floor fun. Not that it isn't just as move-inducing: Misery is packed with enough paranoia, panicked claustrophobia, and fear of the future ("You've acquired the right to expire," "Time to split, call it a loss") to ensure that, even if you have a head full of E, the album will inevitably be a buzzkill.

Which is only to say that those in search of nothing more than straightforward escapism under the strobe light best look elsewhere. Still, Misery is so far and by far the year's best electro comp: with songs by San Francisco's Gold Chains, Detroit's chilling, art-damaged Tamion 12 Inch, and Chicago's Magas and Tommie Sunshine, the album offers listeners – be they electronic aficionados or newcomers who dunno electro from their a-hole – a stellar, brilliantly accessible survey of today's best artists who survived the '80s once and have since gone back from the future. (Jimmy Draper)

Various artists

Don't Fuck with Us (Digital Hardcore)

Digital Hardcore head honcho Alec Empire catches and may deserve a lot of flak for being an egotistical loudmouth. But when you're dealing with music like that of Empire's Atari Teenage Riot – which, like most of the stuff on DHR, thrives on a certain level of abrasiveness and hyperactivity – it follows that the people who create it are likely to have obnoxious personalities. A friend of mine, talking about a split CD he bought by DJ Scud, Nitro, and Bombardier, remarked, "Techno names sound like WWF wrestlers." So what? I'll take the silly harder-than-you posturing of this rabble-rousing hardcore stuff over the tasteful sterility of so much Intelligent Dance Music any day.

Empire compiled Don't Fuck with Us, a three-disc set with 66 tracks by 35 artists (all American) that clocks in at nearly four hours, by picking highlights from the mounds of demos and recordings that had piled up in his label's U.S. office. His liner notes explain, "Those who expect to find the underground spirit in the old capital of hardcore and innovation [Berlin, where Empire is from] will only find white 'booty' shaking bitter ex-activists who escaped into an indie kindergarten.... The energy has moved on, mostly to the United States or maybe to the entire American continent!"

Wading through boxes of unsolicited material from mostly unknown, self-produced electronic artists seems like a nightmare, and yes, there are some duds. Overall, though, the quality level is pretty high, with too many standouts to list, including the industrialized metal/breakbeat collisions of Kaput, the Shizit, and Schizoid (who, along with a guy who calls himself "the Threat," represents the WWF-name contingent), the dubiously named Mike V2.0's "Opinion," which pits spare, atonal piano plunking against distorted drum machine contortions, and Tactilvision's "X-Life," a seven-minute dirge that sounds like a call-and-response duet between two ill robots. Make no mistake, this is no Harder than the Rest – the classic mid-'90s DHR comp with ATR, Shizuo, EC80R, Killout Trash, etc. – but to hear creative abuse of technology by so many people I've never heard of is exciting anyway. (Will York)

Various artists

Off Limits 3 (Recreation/Sonar Kollektiv)

This mix starts with a burst of aural pixels and chopped snippets of guitar, stuttering and disjointed until a pattern emerges and the funk starts to flow. Riton's "Initial Problem" kicks off Steffen "Dixon" Berkhahn's charged mix. Besides being quirkily beautiful in its own right, the aptly named tune serves as a perfect beginning to a CD that runs from glitchy breaks to butter-smooth soul.

Dixon is part of Germany's Sonar Kollektiv, an amorphous amalgamation of musicians, DJs, and producers whose best-known associates are remix kings Jazzanova. While in the past he has experimented on the percussive fringes of fusion, with modest success producing such people as Femi Kuti and Attica Blues, for Off Limits 3 he remains closer to a house-oriented home base. The result is a mix that covers a variety of sounds while still keeping the flow.

By dropping cuts from relatively obscure and new artists, Dixon plays the essential DJ role of explorer. Artists like Âme, Soha, and Ayro are new to me. But on the basis of songs like Âme's "ToNite," a squelching funk junket, and the truly amazing "Let This," Ayro's journey from uplifting gospel to broken bass, I'm definitely filing them away for the future.