The prevailing stereotype of German electronic music is cold and clinical techno and trance — rigorous man-machine music that hypnotizes the listener with frictionless drum-machine thump and freeze-dried synthesizer pulse. Embodied by techno-pioneers Kraftwerk, this post-human disposition lives on in the minimalist tech-house of the Force Inc. label, the über-intellectualized, “glitch”-techno of the Mille Plateaux crew, and the expertly engineered glacial grandeur of trance titan Paul Van Dyk. Yet German-speaking countries have also been home to a wealth of warm and witty dub- and jazz-influenced electronic music that counters the Teutonic-techno stereotype. Viennese fashion plates Kruder & Dorfmeister are the most visible act on this scene, but perhaps the premier outlet for the subgenre is the Munich-based Compost label, home to Jazzanova, Beanfield, and the long-standing Future Sound of Jazz compilation series. Founded by producer/DJ/journalist Michael Reinboth in 1994, Compost released some cool trip-hop records in the mid-’90s, but it’s cast aside that tired label.

No one seems able to agree on what to call the kind of music Compost champions — nu-jazz, electro-jazz, downtempo, offbeat, and broken beat are some of the labels journalists have thrown around, but none has stuck. Perhaps that’s because Compost’s output represents two opposing trends in dance music. There’s a retro and jazz-centric outlook that prizes organic tones, “ethnic” touches, and improvised solos — which means releases often sound like a restrained take on the spacious modal jazz of Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd. Les Gammas’ Excercises de Styles is stocked with string-laden takes on the jazz standard “All of Me,” guest spots by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, and full-throttle horn arrangements that would make Oliver Nelson proud. Bolstered by circular drum and bass patterns, this style straddles the past and present, as pieces of jazz detritus collide with contemporary groove theories into something awfully familiar but elusively new.

But Compost’s recent releases wouldn’t be possible without advances in post-breakbeat, post–drum ’n’ bass sequencer manipulation that are as impressive, if not as flamboyant, as the controlled mayhem of bedroom auteurs like Squarepusher and Amon Tobin. Forgoing techno’s rigid 4/4 grooves, a typical Compost rhythm track draws from a battery of pan-ethnic sources (bossa nova, disco, samba, Afro-beat, funk) but restlessly stretches, twists, and mutates the source material into slippery and syncopated grooves that are often fast enough for the dance floor but more polyrhythmically tricky than a typical house track. Plus, these grooves never fall into rhythm stasis; they breathe and grow over time. It’s a quality that British music critic Kodwo Eshun calls “artificial realism” — it might sound like Tito Puente and Fela Kuti cooking up a groove in your speakers, but there’s a utopian sheen and a digital texture that belie its binary nature.

This artificial realism and percussive rigor are at the heart of Fauna Flash’s upcoming Fusion (out on Compost on February 27), which combines drum ’n’ bass freneticism with sensual samba sway and salsa-tinged percolations. It’s also the defining quality of Jazzanova, a six-man Berlin-based DJ/producer collective with a reputation that far overshadows their meager discography — only two EPs and a handful of one-offs over three years. This drought ended recently with the release of The Remixes 1997-2000 (Jazzanova-Compost Records), a two-disc set that compiles 20 remixes and at its heights is as insistent and restless as the best jungle and more original than two-step garage.

Jazzanova are so thrilling in part because their tunes begin so innocuously — with drifting ambient chords, mellow disco loops, acoustic bass jaunts — and continue to run their course without flashy electronic trickery or pomo cut-and-paste tactics. Jazzanova’s remix of Men from the Nile’s “Watch them Come!!!” begins like a typical ethno-house number — a four-on-the-floor groove topped off with shaker rustles. Early on, clave rim-shot accents are added; then the bass-drum hits are staggered in asymmetrical groups; then sparkling timbale triplets begin to ply at the underlying groove. Before long, the metronomic house thump is replaced by a flood of tickling syncopations and offbeat accents that build into a percussion hailstorm.

Other Jazzanova tunes state their case boldly from the start. “Broken beat” is a damn good way to describe the drum pattern that begins Jazzanova’s rerub of Ski’s “Fifths.“ Out of phase with the underlying bass line, the snare snaps and kick drums twitch and pause like the European cousin of a Timbaland track, blurring the bar line and accelerating into hiccupping rhythm fractals. Throughout all this programming virtuosity, Jazzanova never lose sight of the funk. This is, after all, dance music, not an academic exercise — even if, like the rest of Compost’s catalogue, it does require some study.

The prevailing stereotype of German electronic music is cold and clinical techno and trance — rigorous man-machine music that hypnotizes the listener with frictionless drum-machine thump and freeze-dried synthesizer pulse. Embodied by techno-pioneers Kraftwerk, this post-human disposition lives on in the minimalist tech-house of the Force Inc. label, the über-intellectualized, “glitch”-techno of the Mille Plateaux crew, and the expertly engineered glacial grandeur of trance titan Paul Van Dyk. Yet German-speaking countries have also been home to a wealth of warm and witty dub- and jazz-influenced electronic music that counters the Teutonic-techno stereotype. Viennese fashion plates Kruder & Dorfmeister are the most visible act on this scene, but perhaps the premier outlet for the subgenre is the Munich-based Compost label, home to Jazzanova, Beanfield, and the long-standing Future Sound of Jazz compilation series. Founded by producer/DJ/journalist Michael Reinboth in 1994, Compost released some cool trip-hop records in the mid-’90s, but it’s cast aside that tired label.

No one seems able to agree on what to call the kind of music Compost champions — nu-jazz, electro-jazz, downtempo, offbeat, and broken beat are some of the labels journalists have thrown around, but none has stuck. Perhaps that’s because Compost’s output represents two opposing trends in dance music. There’s a retro and jazz-centric outlook that prizes organic tones, “ethnic” touches, and improvised solos — which means releases often sound like a restrained take on the spacious modal jazz of Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd. Les Gammas’ Excercises de Styles is stocked with string-laden takes on the jazz standard “All of Me,” guest spots by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, and full-throttle horn arrangements that would make Oliver Nelson proud. Bolstered by circular drum and bass patterns, this style straddles the past and present, as pieces of jazz detritus collide with contemporary groove theories into something awfully familiar but elusively new.

But Compost’s recent releases wouldn’t be possible without advances in post-breakbeat, post–drum ’n’ bass sequencer manipulation that are as impressive, if not as flamboyant, as the controlled mayhem of bedroom auteurs like Squarepusher and Amon Tobin. Forgoing techno’s rigid 4/4 grooves, a typical Compost rhythm track draws from a battery of pan-ethnic sources (bossa nova, disco, samba, Afro-beat, funk) but restlessly stretches, twists, and mutates the source material into slippery and syncopated grooves that are often fast enough for the dance floor but more polyrhythmically tricky than a typical house track. Plus, these grooves never fall into rhythm stasis; they breathe and grow over time. It’s a quality that British music critic Kodwo Eshun calls “artificial realism” — it might sound like Tito Puente and Fela Kuti cooking up a groove in your speakers, but there’s a utopian sheen and a digital texture that belie its binary nature.

This artificial realism and percussive rigor are at the heart of Fauna Flash’s upcoming Fusion (out on Compost on February 27), which combines drum ’n’ bass freneticism with sensual samba sway and salsa-tinged percolations. It’s also the defining quality of Jazzanova, a six-man Berlin-based DJ/producer collective with a reputation that far overshadows their meager discography — only two EPs and a handful of one-offs over three years. This drought ended recently with the release of The Remixes 1997-2000 (Jazzanova-Compost Records), a two-disc set that compiles 20 remixes and at its heights is as insistent and restless as the best jungle and more original than two-step garage.

Jazzanova are so thrilling in part because their tunes begin so innocuously — with drifting ambient chords, mellow disco loops, acoustic bass jaunts — and continue to run their course without flashy electronic trickery or pomo cut-and-paste tactics. Jazzanova’s remix of Men from the Nile’s “Watch them Come!!!” begins like a typical ethno-house number — a four-on-the-floor groove topped off with shaker rustles. Early on, clave rim-shot accents are added; then the bass-drum hits are staggered in asymmetrical groups; then sparkling timbale triplets begin to ply at the underlying groove. Before long, the metronomic house thump is replaced by a flood of tickling syncopations and offbeat accents that build into a percussion hailstorm.

Other Jazzanova tunes state their case boldly from the start. “Broken beat” is a damn good way to describe the drum pattern that begins Jazzanova’s rerub of Ski’s “Fifths.“ Out of phase with the underlying bass line, the snare snaps and kick drums twitch and pause like the European cousin of a Timbaland track, blurring the bar line and accelerating into hiccupping rhythm fractals. Throughout all this programming virtuosity, Jazzanova never lose sight of the funk. This is, after all, dance music, not an academic exercise — even if, like the rest of Compost’s catalogue, it does require some study.