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DJ Chip McClure
Dancefloor Essentials: Floor 1
DFE Records

Sugar, a twice-monthly soiree at the Stud, is one of the sweetest parties in San Francisco, in a large part because of the luscious, ecstatic house music that keeps the crowd on its feet all night. Now Chip McClure, one of Sugar's resident DJs, has issued a mix CD that's nearly as delectable as his live sets. Comprising of disco-infused house anthems and hypnotic synth melodies, Floor 1 is smooth and soulful enough to listen to on a hungover Sunday morning as well as on a hyped-up Saturday night. The music is midtempo and accessible, but that doesn't mean it's bland or shallow--these plush, pulsating beats are almost impossible not to move to.


pc muñoz
The Trouble I Bring
Beehive Records

The new album from San Francisco's pc muñoz is a fascinating amalgam of spoken word, acid-jazz and R&B with elements of old-school electro and even hints of gospel. Over minimal percussive textures and synth washes, muñoz singsongs in a smooth, snaky voice. But if muñoz is the protagonist of his songs, then he's a dog. The song "That's Right Baby" is entrancing until you listen to the lyrics: "That's right baby, I don't love you no more, and now that you know, show yourself to the door." Then he has the nerve to put in a gospel refrain of "Glory glory, hallelujah, glory glory, I am free." Throughout the album, you have to wade through macho nastiness to get to the sweltering space-age funk underneath.


Rialto
Rialto
China Records

All the hype and the fawning Face magazine covers that have surrounded Britpop are worth it if once in a while we get a band like Rialto. Falling somewhere between Pulp and St. Etienne, Rialto's thrilling debut mixes easy-listening atmospherics with grandiose hooks, luscious orchestrations, cinephile slinkiness and supersaturated emotion. The music is unabashedly beautiful, so sexy and beguiling that even the creepy obsessive lyrics--"If you were an angel, I would cut off your wings/To keep you with me I would do anything"--sound electrifyingly romantic.

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From the October 5-18, 1998 issue of the Metropolitan.

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