**

ANTHONY PAPPA

(Global Underground)

Pappa, an international club DJ originally from Australia, delivers two full-length CDs of almost completely instrumental trance music on this homonymous release. His style is purely that of a programmer: he focuses on the smooth sequencing of sounds. Of mix techniques, the quick cut and the overlay, one hears no trace. Indeed, the blended smoothness of Pappa's sequences rejects the jump and bustle of the turntable mixer's art. Although at times (especially on the first of these two sessions) his program deepens toward the plush of classic house, for the most part his spare and nonmelodic textures feel like a bittersweet, fatigued version of old Giorgio Moroder without Donna Summer. Except that Moroder's mood music, even sans Summer, had warmth and body, sexiness, and a sense of laughter and tears, whereas Pappa's sharp beats and crinkly electronica reject emotional display, not to mention sex. DJs improvising actual club sets from Pappa's basics will likely mix voice, melody, and plush into his sonically transparent tracks, because without embellishment, these sessions paint a bleak metallic picture quite at odds with the hotblooded ecstasy that moves a man's (or a woman's) soul to dance.

-- Michael Freedberg