A compilation called The Audible Still-Life: Sonic Planar Analysis 02 has to be either one of two things -- a supplement on CD used by both linear algebra and modern philosophy courses at a college near you, or a conceptual art disc filled with pieces of abstract sound sculpture and accompanied by slightly limp, pretentious liner notes that sound important but never make you want to pull the disc out with the same regularity as, say, Missy E's This Is Not A Test!.

The Audible Still-Life is, of course, the latter, but don't be turned off by the chin-scratching air to the words "sound sculpture" just yet. First of all, most of these tracks come in at four minutes or under, so any worries about navigating 20-minute-plus compositions while your ears long to hear the sweet sounds of Timbaland and Missy bumping along together can be put to rest. You can sample without the time commitment and then return to safer waters as needed, and the four-minute limit allows each artist enough time to present their basic sound (and accompanying "idea") without risking the self-indulgence that can ruin longer pieces.

And each one here is suitably interesting, if a little on the quiet side overall (which is explained by the project's concept -- audio representations, literal or otherwise, of still-life scenery as selected by individual contributors). Some are exclusively digital, including Jeremy Boyle's beautifully minimal "White Noise Generator Circuit", which is just about as self-explanatory as you can get, and Plank's "~~w-~c|-~,Y-|-yp"-1/2-y-~|-~k-", a delicately crafted microsound playground that uses silence with an almost tongue-in-cheek effect (and requires intense concentration to type out). Others incorporate the polyphonic sounds of a dripping faucet (Schoenecker's "Sugar"), different kinds of room ambience (Hal Rammel's "Highway Construction (In Action)"), and even human voices (Trace Reddell's "Eliot's Magic Lantern"). In all, the disc represents an admirable range of styles with which electroacoustic music has shared sympathies over the years, from the extremely minimal ("White Noise Generator Circuit") to the nearly hook-laden ("Eliot's Magic Lantern", i+o's "The Dead Air Spaces"), and ends up stronger for the effort.

While the sounds on The Audible Still-Life are neither groundbreaking nor destined to light up any singles chart, they're often contemplative and serene, occasionally beautiful, universally short and always interesting, even past their art-theory conceit. In other words, you can put any one of these tracks on your next mix CD between Missy and Hey Mercedes and the thing won't skip a beat.