[Non Standard Productions]

For a producer who seems enthralled with a quintessential set of musicians and entertainers (as evinced by her top Myspace friends), Margaret Dygas’ latest release could hardly be further from the norms and standards of dance music. The Polish producer’s thorny and compellingly off-kilter debut for Contexterrior hinted at experimental instincts, and “See You Around” jumps into the deep end of abstract electronics without looking back. Aided in the studio by the venerable Tobias Freund, Dygas explores the farthest reaches of what can still be called dance music with a confidence uncommon in many fledgling producers. Fittingly, “See You Around” is released on Non Standard Productions, Freund’s label with Max Loderbauer, one outlet where unconventional sounds are the standard.

Dispensing almost entirely with dance floor functionality, Dygas regards rhythm as just one facet of her oddly textured works. The title track busts off snare hits like haphazard Glock shots, its kick drum heart beating in syncopated clusters, while “37 Minutes to 7″ is tapped out as methodical morse code in more dependable intervals. But the leading roles go to an endlessly rotating cast of disparate sounds: distorted voices sloshing and sinking, winsome pads, strangled, plucked and abused guitar strings, random ticks and tucks, each leapfrogging each other for prime positions in “See You Around.” The more orderly “37 Minutes to 7″ is pounded out in industrial timbres of resonant clangs and woozy clinks, hovering drones ensuring its elements are kept moving. Taken together, “See You Around” is something of an acid test, yielding varying degrees of disquiet and enjoyment depending on the listener’s taste for IDM-like abstraction. But for any producer, let alone one with only one previous release, music this creative is an accomplishment and perhaps indicative of a bright and unconvential future. Keep your eyes and ears on Margaret Dygas.