*** Carl Cox

PHUTURE 2000

(Moonshine)

In six extended and segued tracks DJ Carl Cox presents his hard-edged, trance-toned, acid version of house, the dark, flamboyant beat music that has dominated dance-club rhythms for more than a decade. Cox's mixes flow, as one New York Times critic put it, "with a minimum of effort," but his energetic program never sounds laid-back. Still, the hardness of his music veers far away from the joyfully plush and soulful deeps of most house music. The bitter tones, putdowns, and minimalist rhythms that constitute "Been Smarter," "The Mission," and "Yeah" fume with anger, frustration, hard sweat, and constant work. Even "Another Place," an orchestral cauldron of synthesizers and mockery, and the CD's title track, a whiplash fantasy of Kraftwerk-derived rhythm overlaid with distant, icy boy voice, belie the sweet dreamworks that orient most disco songs dedicated to elsewheres and futurism. For Cox, other worlds and the future are rhythmic imperatives, fraught with hurry, conflict, and confusion -- too much confusion, unfortunately, to sustain the beat upon which the spiritual credibility of house music depends.

-- Michael Freedberg