Techno a-Go-Go

Although he's not wholly convinced that the genre is worthy, critic Robert Christgau allows that as far techno music is concerned, "Any futurism that counts [it] out is no futurism at all." With its loops and samples, today's thinking-person's techno draws on the past and copies and pastes it into a new form that tells us where we've been and points to where we might go. Artists like James Lavelle, DJ Shadow and the Chemical Brothers are packaging up and delivering sounds that are not only beat driven but also thought provoking. What follows is a stack of CDs that are currently in heavy rotation on the dance floor of my mind.

With its distinct '70s disco vibe, Playground's playful self-titled record (on Astralwerks) is heavy on da funk a la Daft Punk. The brainchild of mixmaster Trevor Jackson – who has tinkered with the likes of Massive Attack and U2 – this is a fresh-sounding album with some old-school talent that includes Edwin Collins, Happy Mondays' Rowetta and Aztec Camera's Roddy Frame. If you can imagine a place where hip-hop, punk and reggae dub all meet, then you've found Playground.

With its languid beats and cinematic ambience, Abraham's debut, Blue for the Most (V2), is Dido for the down-tempo set. The deep-blue mood is set on the opening track "Magpie," and from there the album swoons slowly through numbers like the incandescent "Stay Here" and the eerie "City for Us." Along the way we hear subtle bits of turntablism, folk, funk and trip-hop, all of which is fleshed out with the airy yet sensual vocals of Rachel Cuming.

Moving a little more left of center is Yuka Honda's Memories Are My Only Witness (Tzadik). The former member of Cibo Matto has taken in a lot of influences over the years and has now turned them out on this masterful album of atmospheric instrumentals. Much like the work of Cornelius, the songs here are a hodge-podge of styles, leaping genres like a graceful hurdler. But one comes away from Memories with the sense of a singular sensibility at work.

One of the masters of avant house music is Matthew Herbert, and the two-CD Secondhand Sounds (Peacefrog) collects a chunk of the best work that he's created under a variety of guises with names like Wishmountain and Dr Rockit. Herbert takes off-kilter beats and scratchy soundscapes and then lays on a lush jazz veneer while incorporating the disparate likes of Etienne de Crecy, Terra Deva, Moloko and Serge Gainsbourg. Secondhand Sounds brings the art of remix to an art.

With its sketchy rhythms and stark synths, Soulo's eponymous debut (on Plug Research) is a minimalist's delight, merging the artificial with the organic. Chicago's Shawn King and Nate Flanigan may be cutting a page out of Stereolab's trick book, but this duo embellish repetitiousness with enchanting and wistful melodies that actually stick in your brain. Delicate but dark, Soulo blurs at the edges like a colorful painting left out in the rain.

If any of these albums have piqued your interest, you might want to track down the self-titled debut by The United States of America (on Edsel). Released in 1968 to an indifferent world ("It is hard to believe that this album compels the serious attention it does today when it was so neglected at its release," says singer Dorothy Moskowitz today), The United States of America is now viewed as a seminal roots album of the electronica movement. With its influences from John Cage, its primitive but engaging synthesizers and titles like "I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar," this record is a trip – one that forged the path upon which many techno artists have since tread.

Eliot Wilder has his own Web site at www.eliotwilder.com. For information on how to obtain any of these albums, please contact him at his site.

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