The here-and-there national media coverage that Wait Til the Ice Melts, an electronic music compilation, has received seems to suggest, not without a hint of mockery, that it's somehow a shock that the massive state of Texas can come up with anything beyond yokel-driven acoustic guitar and other brands of slack-jawed musical idiocy. Maybe it's the subtitle of the compilation which is causing the problem, as "New Music" doesn't necessarily imply electronic music, or wordlessness in any way; or maybe, conversely, it's the presence of the word "Texas" which is causing the problem, as that five-letter word seems to evoke in non-residents a sense of simplemindedness, Bushism, pickup trucks, cowboy boots, and hootenanny tomfoolery. But to get past these preconceived notions is to dig into Wait Til the Ice Melts, Exponential Records' way of doing us all a favor by culling from hundreds of possibilities a quick and satisfying mix of electronica from contiguous America's largest state. more ›