Nostalgia-based fondness for them aside, I'm not going to claim that Deee-Lite broke any ground. Sure, the group was the picture of the late '80s/early '90s New York club kid heyday, and Lady Miss Kier Kirby looked as deee-lovely as anyone could have hoped for. However, aside from being among the first group to sport platform shoes on MTV, Deee-Lite were never the trailblazing type. Particularly, musically. Looking back, the group seems, more than anything, like a barrel of well-dressed monkeys that made the Top 40 radio of their time at least slightly more bearable.

And that's fine. Really. I'm not of the school of elitism that claims that music has to smack of vitality to be enjoyable. Deee-Lite's biggest hit-- "Groove is in the Heart," naturally-- and its accompanying video, are emblematic of any greatness the group may have achieved: their good taste. Fusing a dab of psychedelia with disco sensibilities, letting Bootsy Collins sort out the bassline while referencing Horton Hears a Who proved the group clever and much more worthwhile than their early '90s dance pop peers.

Supa DJ Dmitry was always the straight man of the group. His house beats were complemented by DJ Towa Tei's off-kilter and often hilarious dubby, funk production. Tei has gone on to release three equally campy records, to varying degrees of success. Up next is Dmitry who makes his debut with his DJ mix LP, Scream of Consciousness, which finally proves what we always suspected: being a straight man is no fun.

If DJ mix LPs are good for anything (frat parties notwithstanding), it's to show off the DJ's taste in music. But on Scream of Consciousness, Dmitry proves he's either never had taste to begin with, or has since forgotten what taste is; virtually nothing on the album gives even a remote indication of a discriminating mixmaster.

The house and trance music that makes up the bulk of Scream of Consciousness is dull and soulless. During the first half of the record, Dmitry rarely varies the pounding bpms with his assemblage of acid and hard house cuts by the likes of Josh Wink, Timo Maas, and Steve Stoll. The record is seamless to a fault-- it's barely evident when the songs change.

Toward the end of the record, though, Dmitry improves the mix by dropping some much needed funk. Super Collider's "Darn (Cold Way O' Lovin')" is a shifty, bottom-heavy bit of wackiness. Similarly, Dmitry's own "Singularity" is bubbly house that accelerates to a jungle breakdown. It's by no means perfect, but it does show some promise for Dmitry as a producer. Until, that is, he mixes in his own outrageously abhorrent trance cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," with "Twin Peaks" songbird Julee Cruise on vocals. I probably don't have to explain what a pointless exercise the cover is. Rest assured, though, it blows.

Perhaps Dmitry was going for something more subversive with this mix. Instead of keeping with Deee-Lite's pop spirit, he's come up with a melange of spiritless, throbbing club tracks strictly for the visor-flipping, pacifier-sucking, big-pants-wearing club set. I'd like to give that particular group a bit more credit, though, and gander that even they would find Screams of Consciousness utterly lifeless.

-Richard M. Juzwiak