Ash International's Fault in the Nothing compilation is an extremely challenging listen, not only because of the wide spectrum of artists, but primarily because of the disparity between the most minimal artists, like Bernhard Günter and Marc Behrens, and the noisiest, like power electronics artists Merzbow, Daniel Menche, and Achim Wollscheid. Packaged in an oversize plastic wallet with eight black and white insert cards, the two disks are labelled simply Black Hole and White Hole and are marked only with a tiny dot for their respective colors. Black Hole is the more intense of the two. The first track is a long piece by Bernhard Günter, known for his quiet pieces of rumbles, crackling, quiet drones, and water sounds. The unaware listener will probably turn up the volume appropriately for this piece, which is almost a half-hour in duration. This same listener will get blasted by the second track, a soundcheck from the extreme Japanese noise artist Merzbow's throbbing rhythms and screeching noises. Ios Smolders contributes a track that combines both tendencies; quiet ambient passages alternate with loud and harsh electronics (including voice and radio samples). This is followed by Marc Behrens' environmental, low-volume ambient piece. The contrasts are not so pronounced on White Hole, but still present nonetheless. Former Hafler Trio and Cabaret Voltaire member Chris Watson contributes a beautiful, untreated field recording of seal cows (two photos of the seals are included on insert cards). Ralf Wehowsky contributes a short and very carefully constructed piece, one that repays multiple listenings and close attention to detail. Panasonic (renamed as Pan Sonic since the release of this album) and Mego founders Peter Rehberg and Ramon Bauer contribute drone-based electronic pieces. Oval's piece is very similar to the group's breakthrough album Systemisch, and Ryoji Ikeda contributes a short track that combines his interest in sine wave drones with interrupted radio samples, similar to the noisier parts of his Time and Space release. Unfortunately, the extreme noise of several of the pieces works against the more subtle ones and so, although the collection contains many of the most interesting extreme sound artists of the 1990s, most listeners probably won't be reaching for it very often. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide