Uwe Schmidt, also known as Atom Heart, Señor Coconut, and several dozen other aliases (he's released more than 100 albums), is quite a puzzle. His last record as Señor Coconut, El Baile Aleman, found him sampling traditional Latin American instruments and arranging them to play straight Kraftwerk covers. It was a fun record that I ultimately found a little hollow, and I've barely listened to it since I reviewed it.

Little did I know then that El Gran Baile, Schmidt's first album of original material as Señor Coconut (and in the UK, technically Coconut's debut), borders on brilliant. This remastered and augmented version of the record is just now seeing its first stateside release, after European distribution on Schmidt's own Rather Interesting label in 1997. Unlike El Baile Aleman, I hear very little kitsch on this album. Schmidt is able to extract concentrate the inherently pleasurable Latin rhythms and textures, but he transposes the familiar music to the digital realm, and adds a fascinating layer of playfulness and unpredictability. It's seriously fun music.

As with many of his recent projects, Schmidt seems to delight in confounding expectations about sound sources. Some of these rhumba, mambo and salsa beats are likely lifted directly from records; others are painstakingly constructed from microscopic samples on Schmidt's computer; still others might contain live drums and xylophones. And flitting through all the traditional Latin paraphernalia are glitches, synth stabs, scratches and the like.

Any individual track might be constructed from any combination of these sources. Some have only the slightest "Latin" feel, while others offer straighter interpretations of the sound. "El Coco Baile" could just be the result of a pitch-shifted salsa record spun on 78, if it weren't for the stuttering digital stutters that threaten to knock the dancing girls off their zapatas. "Suavito" is four parts Acapulco lounge band and one part Autechre, as some of the sounds occasionally get "stuck" and go off into infinite loops.

Further removed from the record's theme is "Diarios Clave," which has a kind of woodblock percussion and vibes happening on one level, but features punishing bass sounds and dirty funk snares that seem to have been brought in from entirely different musical worlds. The fun here, and throughout all of El Gran Baile, is tuning in to see what happens when these musical worlds collide.

Even further from homage to the music of Central and South America is "La Noche Cool." It begins as a gorgeous drone, and then expands to include some unidentifiable hums and buzzes. Eventually, a piano pattern and some lazy percussion fade up, finally revealing the slight Latin connection. The woozy, modulating tone that swims through the remainder of the track is not far from the breathtaking textures of Jan Jenelik's Loop-Finding Jazz Records; of course, this version was laid down four years earlier. For the adventurous abstract DJ, this track would make for one cool night, indeed.

Had I heard this record before El Baile Aleman, I might have had some deeper insight into what Schmidt was doing with that Kraftwerk business. I'm not sure how much it would have affected my enjoyment, exactly, but this record has tuned me into the idea that he makes records as Señor Coconut to explore the idea of choosing a viewpoint and then seeing how he might look at other music through it. None of this kind of speculation is necessary, of course; just listen to El Gran Baile and enjoy.

-Mark Richard-San