*** DJ Spooky

SYNTHETIC FURY EP

(Asphodel)

A self-referential, science-fiction-savvy writer/artist/musician in a hip-hop landscape that prides playas over thinkers, DJ Spooky -- a/k/a Paul Miller -- went from being 1996's avant-electronica critical darling to 1997's pomo punching bag following the release of the trippy, collagist soundscapes on his shrewd debut, Songs of a Dead Dreamer. But even as New York scribes blasted him for the circuitous, academic syntax and $10 vocabulary of his self-penned liner notes -- only critics are allowed to do that! -- Spooky emerged on several fronts at once: remixing Metallica for the Spawn soundtrack; texture-toasting on Ryuichi Sakamoto's symphonic Dischord; appearing on an album of works by 20th-century composer Iannis Xennakis; jamming with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo; preparing a book titled Flow My Blood the DJ Said; and hanging his art at the Whitney Biennial.

Fury brings jump-cut drum 'n' bass grooves and pounding funk loops into his trademark echo-heavy stereo spectrum, drawing on uncredited samples like the slashing, shower-scene string section from Bernard Herrmann's Psycho soundtrack. Deteriorating train whistles, fax/modem squeals, distant sax meanderings, and surprisingly supple scratching and turntable moves distill in a grainy, lo-fi sonic contraband that evokes the Burroughsian cut-and-paste dialectic of freaks, dreams, semiotic riddles and space-age distortions from where Spooky drew his still apt alias: the "Subliminal Kid." So, word up: who's playin' who?

-- James Rotondi