**1/2 Stuart Jones

LIFE FORCE

(New World Music)

Jones creates a dream world of lushly orchestrated, sadly spacy dance melody in which feelings can float. It resembles the electronic music of Moby, except that Jones buttresses his melodic therapy palace with the deep, material pulse of house music. He arrives at his dreams-on-the-move by means of eight different computerized keyboard instruments and not much else -- in just three songs does a guest diva turn up, the best of them being the sublime soprano of Charmine Ward on the first of the CD's three versions of "The Runner." Even more sublime, though frustratingly distant, is Sarah Jones's Cocteau Twins-like wordless solo on the aptly titled "Your Love Lifts Me," on which Jones swirls and stacks his piano and synthesizer music with a light touch, as dreamy as the best Italian disco without succumbing to calmness or reticence.

-- Michael Freedberg