What did they call that intergalactic bar tucked inside Star Trek’s Deep Space 9?

What wonders would one’s eyes see while casually scanning the roomy and well lit interiors: strolling right by you, beasts of beauty and phosphorescent colors, hideous, disquieting and disgusting all at once populating every corner of the place. One –one being anyone of human descent- had to quickly adapt to the much broader ‘universal beauty standards’ than those prevailing back ‘home’ on planet Earth.

The drinks –some fizzing dangerously below the snouts (pardon me but those were not noses nor mouths) of those holding them-, reverberated with neon colors and swirled like the very galaxies plastered outside the immense bar windows.

Strangely enough, the music they used to score this surreal scene was often flat.

Of course, Americans might excel at Special FX wizardry but they sometimes lag behind a bit in sophistication when it comes to the right tunes to truly baptize a scene: ‘alien, not of this earth…' Too bad Deep Space 9 producers didn’t get a hold of the ethereal and positively alien music of French DJ conglomerate: Hands. Gosh, if one could only rewind Time.

Play The Imperial Way (track #1 of Hand’s new release “So Beautiful”) and you’ll understand why.

Immediately, you’ll be transported back to the coolest window table in the above mentioned intergalactic bar: you’ll be gazing out, toward the black void in front of you while softly behind and all around you, the chanting of primitive human voices, drumming and a heavy weaving of synthesizer work will almost make you cry. Even amid the techno-wizardry of the future, nothing will move something within you as this song does… a distant earth behind you, the speed of the distant future as numbing as the closest star.

Some of us were born definitely before our time. In this sense, Lacan had it positively right: all humans are born prematurely, but not by months as he presupposes but by light years –I would add- … I always wanted to be a resident of a society of the distant future where language was obsolete and telepathy was the only form of communication allowed. I wanted music to rewire itself inside my neurons, I wanted my synapses to click open wide as data buzzed by. And finally as the Teillhard de Chardin and McLuhan prophecy of a global village becomes a fact, we begin to get a glimpse of this eternal instant that is the present, the Noosphere, the collective unconscious positively rewired… the oh so promised future finally, somehow, at hand…

“Mira la luna Hermosa” a mysterious Spanish voice says in the background as track #2 kicks in. Again, you’ll need a hollodeck to be at home here. Synth’s will speed you forward while a truly sexy beat will make you rock your hips and shoulders in a funky, mellow kind of way… then to cherry it out, a bit of electric/acoustic string work deflects some of the artificiality of this mostly keyboard piece.

Nonetheless, the groove achieved here is definitely bodacious. Like most tracks in this compilation, Mira La Luna Hermosa is also fairly long… in electronica, this is a very positive sign. Often the same song can appear as a ‘themed harmony’ constantly repeating itself thru its harmonic variations as this one does… the song closes with some neat finger work on electrical guitar it seems…

Not all the tracks in this album retain the same ethereal, space-out atmosphere of the opening two tracks. In Brother, song #3, a more traditional club beat is incorporated along with female vocals. Although the song has merits, I’m not sure if it’s a good third choice for an album that has that ‘Enigma-esque’ flavor in the opening tracks. However, the apparent square format of the song is thrown off at mid-length to give way to the first ‘techno’ beat of the album. The singer, with a register similar to that of Jewel and Dido could benefit from a tighter mastering of all the synth elements. Still, this track will easily grow on you with repeated play.

From Deep Space 9 we head back to planet Earth, still, the future:

Johnny Mnemonic has just downloaded off the excess storage inside his ‘hard wired brain’, an entire set of totally clandestine blueprints that some rogue state would love to get their hands on. The pay is handsome; he’s back at home and yells at the top of a hill:

“I want a 3 thousand dollar hooker, I want a really decadent club sandwich…I want a hotel suite worth 2 thousand dollars a night”.

And the soundtrack to all this futuristic neu-romancing should be none other than Summer Party, the most Double-O-Seven-esque of all the tracks here. This slick tune tastes like a forbidden party, like indulgence and sophisticated celebration for some underground achievement the rest of humanity could not fathom nor be told about. It tastes like Thievery Corporation. Like The Phantom throwing a private party for his kitty/spies all at once: and you’re the only outsider allowed … oh my…

Track 5, If I had another chance begins with lots of suave and cool cat moves but then turns into a somewhat generic pop experiment. There are quite many interesting elements and some deep forest-like aboriginal voices countering in the background though. Again, nothing wrong with the song that repeated play won’t smooth out but at least for me, the song lacks some punch… a remix of this with some truly aggressive counterpoint might be a killer dance floor tune

She doesn’t want to come back appears to be the work of the DJ in charge of tune #5… both share a certain Barry White taste to them… I may be wrong but both songs seem to share a certain ‘R&B’ flavor. I’m all for funkadelics though and the sexy organ work around minute 3 of this song is totally a breeze: light and very much like I said, R&B… dig it or skip it, eventually this track will catch you off guard and will make you shake your booty and then you’ll have to realize, like me, that the body likes different things than the head does.

Be patient with track #7, No way to fly away… at the beginning it seems a bit over the top but the organ work and retro synth craftsmanship shown about mid way are  nothing short of mesmerizing… again, this is a perfect song or soundtrack for a spy/race car driver hang out lounge.

One cool feature of this entire album is that although many tracks aim to boost your dance factor, none does it aggressively and they all build up to it.  It is truly more of a lounge album. In the (e)ndulgence experience, this compilation shouldn’t be right at the peak of your trip but instead, in the smooth way down toward the exit…

Still, in So Beautiful, the songs that truly stand out from the rest are those that don’t necessarily depend on pop-styled lyrics. I’m still one who prefers the more ethnic fusion than the pretty English chorus… by the way, living in the US it would sound a bit more glamorous to have some of the tracks with French lyrics.

While the mid portion of this album is populated with some dance, pop-styled songs, many including lyrics, song #9, So Beautiful (like the compilation’s title), heads back straight into electronica territory with some neat tweaks to the knobs. If this song was #3 in the collection I’d play the first tracks in my next party and repeat them in a row at least twice… (OK, not being a DJ, I will have to IPod it and go with the flow… forget fades and all the glamour associated with smoke, mirror balls and all that…)

Again, sexy is a word that comes to mind. Sitting or standing, So Beautiful is a tune fabricated with the materials that make human bones start moving up and down. There’s also some mdma factor alchemically mixed with the synthesizer work… you’ll constantly bounce your head and paint a smile in your lips as you realize this track hits it right on the spot. Pleasure and soft furry clothing slipping off your fingers will also stick to mind. To make it again a signature, they’ve turned this song into an almost 9 minute anthem… again, time to reinvent the track along its themed harmony and revisit all those other loops. The whispering effect also works very well throughout this track.

Above all, this song brings you back to the interstellar traveling that we were talking about.

Every day, many electronica compilations come and go… So Beautiful definitely will manage to stand out if not for a unique brand of beauty at least for a steady use of craftsmanship. No song is a waste here and many are total dance or lounge floor hits. Again, you’ll recognize their tempos and if you buy them in mp3, you’ll be able to happily re-arrange them so that more naturally, they fit the progression of your next high without having to settle for the pre-selected line up of the burned CD.

All in all So Beautiful is a tight lounge electronica compilation. And tight is sacramental when it comes to the electronica music genre. Tight is the highest compliment and regard. Like most things French, this album shows that sophistication is still part of their everyday culture. Being invaded with average grade electronica experiments from the globe over, I’ve downloaded this entire puppy into my new I-Pod from the start…