The newest installment in the Noise of Cologne compilation series is the most sprawling and ambitious one yet, with over seventy artists contributing around a minute’s worth of material. Unlike the previous two volumes, here the track list is simply alphabetical and shuffle-ready, making it more like a stuffed-full sampler than anything—something that always works for me, and reminds me of a favorite LP in my collection that I return to for the same grab-bag feel: the ESP sampler. Some names return from earlier in the series, others make their debut; some sent an original submissions, others excerpts of existing tracks; but in any case each brief concoction (especially for someone unfamiliar with the Cologne scene) is something entirely fresh and unexpected. The handful of participants I had heard before—Andreas O. Hirsch, Marcus Schmickler, Shuoxin Tan—did not disappoint. There are a lot of different things happening stylistically, of course, and yet the extensive roster makes it possible for throughlines of local trends and traditions to emerge. Oodles of modular synth exploration with echoes of progressive electronic music, for example, of which the more conventionally harmonic pieces like Elisa Metz’s “Yellow” and Neozaïre’s “Absence Killed the Lonely Lover” stood out, but I also enjoyed the abstraction of Sebastian von der Heide’s “Piombino Mobile.” Also some great a cappella/text-sound/spoken word; I’m particularly fond of the sketch-like “thinking on his singing” by Hye Young Sin. The only complaint I could possibly have is that I have a ton of homework to do.