Music » Techno Music

Following one of the most licensed CDs in history, 18 delivers more of the gospel samples and spiritual exploration that made Play Moby's breakthrough album. But keep your expectations in check. On 18 there is barely a body-rocker in the bunch. This is often a somber, melancholy disc, blanketed in the washed-over cinematic orchestral melodies Moby's been fond of since his classic self-titled debut. It requires several listenings before the gems shine through the ambient fog--and most depart from Play entirely. On the deceptively minimalist opening track, Moby delivers a powerful message through his thin little voice. "We are all made of stars," he sings, and indeed he's believable. MC Lyte punches out an infectious rap over old-school beat-box rhythms on "Jam for the Ladies," offering one of the disc's few roof-raisers. "At Least We Tried" is a tear-jerking swan song of the highest order, and, finally, "The Rafters" resurrects early-`90s house piano, which will make any of Moby's career-long fans pine for his earliest club hits. The diminutive DJ needn't have produced Play Pt. Two to keep his new fans engaged. Fortunately, his greatest talent for cooking up interesting sounds is still audible; you just need the patience to find it. --Beth Massa

At the end of 1999, Underworld returned from their international Beaucoup Fish tour utterly exhausted. They had spent almost two years on the road, and that was enough for deck wizard Darren Emerson, who picked up his record box, jetted off to Uruguay, claimed his mantle as a globe-trotting international DJ, and turned his back on Underworld forever. Rick Smith, however, reacted to the experience of coming off the tour in a very different way. Locking himself in the studio for eight months, he watched and listened to tape after tape of the Underworld live experience, examining it, dissecting it, evaluating it. The result is Everything, Everything, a 75-minute compilation of the band's greatest onstage moments, from a rampant, super-fast "Shudder/King of Snake" to a breathtaking closing hybrid of techno milestones on "Rez/Cowgirl"--and not forgetting, of course, a frenetic thunder through the band's ultimate crowd-pleaser, the heavenly prototrance anthem "Born Slippy." To the Underworld disciple, this offering will surely come as manna from heaven. --Louis Pattison

Recorded for the recent reissue of the best known Delerium album, Karma, this new mix of their 2000 hit single collaboration with Sarah McLachlan has already been no 1 in the German Dance Charts and once again looks set to take Ibiza by storm this summer. Promoted to UK clubs in late July and August, it will be given a 12" release in its own right in September. The older mixes of Silence sold 13K on download in 2007, and over 11K already in 2008. The track has been selling 500+ downloads per week consistently since April. Delerium albums for Nettwerk include Semantic Spaces (1995), their breakthrough album Karma (1997), Poem (2001), Chimera (2003) and Nuages Du Monde (2006). The band have sold over a million albums in North America alone, but are also known for a string of successful singles, including the worldwide dance smash Silence (featuring the vocal talents of Canadian superstar Sarah McLachlan), which has sold close to 400,000 copies in the UK alone. Other hits have included After All, Innocente (Falling In Love), Underwater and Heaven's Earth.

Moby is back on dance floor turf after the full-body assault of the hardcore Animal Rights. Here he rounds up his existing soundtrack work (for The Saint and Scream, among others), debuts his funky retro take on the James Bond theme (rejected by the producers of Tomorrow Never Dies), and reprises his towering guitar assault on Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades." Fans of his classic Everything Is Wrong disc should check "Go," a house track fueled by a Twin Peaks sound bite. --Jeff Bateman

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Special U.S. limited edition 2 CD set includes a bonus disc of remixes, B-sides and unreleased tracks. The Altogether is made up of eleven very distinct pieces of music. Stand-out tracks include the first UK single, Funky Break and Illuminate, the collaboration with David Gray.

This is not the expected knockout from the renegade female drum & bass mixmaster, but it's still a fine display of versatility. On her major-label debut, DJ Rap (n?e British model Charissa Saverio) offers everything from dippy Madonna-style club tracks ("Bad Girl") and narcotic electro jams ("Fuck with Your Head") to icy instrumental scores ("Stories from Around the World"). But after fumbling through several indistinguishable dance cuts, she really hits her stride with the majestically orchestrated "Changes," a song that uses her beats and glamour to maximum effect. --Aidin Vaziri

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Front Line Assembly enlists Kirsty Thirsk of the Rose Chronicles for a heavenly ambient house project. Trance that bounces with beauty and energy. --Jeff Bateman