Michael Santos - The Happy Error karu:11, CD (digipak) 11 audio tracks, (p) 2008 With Michael Santos, happiness is just an error away... UK electronic artist Michael Santos releases his first widely distributed, commercially available album. "The Happy Error" features 11 tracks of soft sonic textures articulated over subtle chords and harmonic changes. The music on "The Happy Error" is resolutely cinematic, without falling for the usual trappings of the genre. The album offers songs without words in which digital glitches and computer filters replace vocals, bringing in a different kind of warmth. Even though he mostly works with computers, Michael Santos is more of a musician than an experimental sound artist. Most of his melodic material he draws from guitars and sine waves. To this material he imposes software-based manipulations, making sure to integrate along the way the "accidents" that are unavoidable with digital treatments. "The Happy Error" is Michael Santos's first album to be pressed on regular compact disc, with commercial distribution. He has released two prior albums, Matters (Benbecula, 2006) and Soft Pocket (U-Cover, 2007), both as very limited CD-r editions. His compositions have also appeared on compilations curated by the labels Benbecula, Miso, and Audiobulb. The webzine Touching Extremes puts Michael Santos "among the most noteworthy young electronic composers in recent years, one of those artists who exploit every creative germ until it becomes a