SHAZAM

Mild mannered label entrepreneur by day, club freakazoid by night, Curtis A. Jones continues his exploration of white-knuckled paranoia in an acid house context with typically grand results. Though the title hardly makes him sound like a prophet, Green Velvet has a lot to say here, and a raft of great productions to back him up. The opener, "Genedefekt," is his usual dystopian rant with equally stark beats and pocket-calculator effects cribbed from Kraftwerk, while the highlight "La La Land" hilariously sends up the SoCal rave scene -- complete with Jones' rhythmic robot vocals and a classic chorus to file with Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit": "Somethin' 'bout those little pills, unreal the thrills they yield/Until they kill a million brain cells." Whatever is just as packed with genius tracks as his previous work, though Jones appears to be running out of ideas; there's really not much difference between early Green Velvet classics like "Answering Machine" or "The Stalker" and a few tracks here ("Stranj," "Stop Lyin'"), except they sounded much fresher back then. ~ John Bush, Rovi