***

DMA FUSE ENERGY

(Fusebox)

Compiled by Dance Music Authority magazine, this offers 16 tracks of the girls-in-space disco style known as NRG. Many were made in Ontario (it was Torontoan NRG lovers who made Alanis Morissette a disco star), where the screaming diva glimmer of Mix Factory's "Take Me Away" and the I'll-take-you-theres that Marina fusses over in "Um-Lotty-Da" commonly achieve pop-radio status -- as in the US they do not. Even the US, however, heard La Bouche's slick "I Love To Love," a '98 remix of Hazell Dean's horny-wallflower hit "Searchin' (Gotta Find a Man)," and a hip-house remake of Taylor Dayne's "Tell It to My Heart." As for rocketsongs, always high in an NRG set, this CD features M.Gi.M's "Be Good to Me," Natalie Page's "This Is the Time," Osmania's "Face of a Stranger," and Rhythm Reaction's "You're Not Alone," spaceboy ecstasies that -- as the prophetic words of Mix Factory's diva puts it -- are "what paradise brings, yeah!"

-- Michael Freedberg