When techno — as electronic-dance music was once generically known — first ventured beyond the rigid 4/4 beat during the early 1990s, the very notion seemed so unusual that it was patronizingly dubbed "intelligent" or "armchair" techno. And while that definition enabled acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre to get their twitchy little feet in the mainstream's revolving door, they were quickly shown the exit again once the dance groove returned in force with big beat, trance and drum & bass.

So whatever's become of electronica that doesn't fit a formula? Is there still dance music that travails the sonic landscape like an itinerant mystic, searching out unclaimed territory upon which to hoist a defiant flag of independence? Yes, there is — and if Statra Record's dawn-of-the-millennium sampler, Paradigm Shift, has anything to do with it, that music is poised to once again make itself widely heard.

The six artists who each provide two tracks on Paradigm Shift are inhabitants of techno's global village, hailing from Japan, France, Australia and Jamaica as well as the U.S. While it might be presumptuous to suggest they share a common identity, one reason Paradigm Shift works better than most label samplers is that it does actually sound like a singular piece of work. The armchair observer (ha-ha) easily could assume this is one performer approaching his craft from a variety of angles. The album's openers, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Lypid, for example, the most beat-friendly act on the record (and the only bona fide group), veer instantly from the drum & bass grooves of the title track to the blunted-out beats of the subsequent "Uptown." And Jamaican-born, Miami-based Omar Clemetson eases the Aphex Twin–like uneasiness of "Giant Birdz" with fluid reggae basslines.

Japanese cult figure Susumu Yokota presents the album's most ethereal cuts, using beats primarily to add body to his ambient textures and angelic melodies. New Zealand–born, Australia-based Denver McCarthy follows with the mystically inspired, but more conventionally structured, "First Reflections"

(RealAudio excerpt) and "Rainbow City." Utopia-visioned song titles run riot: French beatnik Laurent Brondel has the gall(ic humor) to title one of his brooding filmic soundscapes "Happiness" (RealAudio excerpt); undaunted, his now U.S.-based countryman Jeff Sharel names his funky track "Organic Dancin'."

If all this sounds a little New Age-y, suggesting what some refer to as chin-stroking music, that's probably because it is. An hour of Paradigm Shift and it's definitely time to pump up the volume. But as affirmation that the electronic groove can pulsate vibrantly without beating loudly, it's just what the disco doctor should be ordering.