For all the hype surrounding Sasha and Digweed's latest DJ mix (surely you caught the illuminating profile in the July issue of Plumber's Mate), this double- disc set is restrained and unsettlingly low-key. Communicate is essentially Part Four of the duo's Northern Exposure series, yet it hints at a slippers- and-briar-pipe side to these two jet-setting Twilo residents.

How much more settled and bourgeois could one get than including an Eric Clapton track ("Get Lost") in a club set? It helps that the song receives a thorough overhaul from David Morales. Still, Sasha and Digweed must be pretty assured of their credibility if that's the sort of material they're dropping on the luv'd-up masses.

Sven Vath's ambient masterpiece, "Barbarella," gets the tech-house re-rub from Deep Dish, who, for once, disappoint me. The beauty of Vath's original version of "Barbarella" lied in its sublime ability to send you off to another green world to watch the sun rise over a purple-shot horizon. When Mixmaster Morris remixed it, the preconception that this was the tune that angels beat their filigree wings to evaporated. But predictably, Dubfire and Sharam fix their trademark chuggah-chuggah beats onto a gossamer tune and thus secure the Madonna remix contract. Shame. There are plenty of shit tracks out there for Deep Dish to ruin without defaming a true classic.

For those of you gasping for fresh Orb material, "Once More" appears on Communicate's second disc. However, duty compels me to state that you're not missing a great deal. Essentially, they offer up some very Tangerine Dream sequencer runs and tribal-ish Ultraworld-style percussion before the number to fades lifelessly into the next song.

John Digweed's Bedrock act appears in remixer/producer guises multiple times here, as does the Slacker team. But with very little to distinguish between each track, it's easy to forget that different records are being used to create the set. Has it become a goal of DJs nowadays to give the impression that you're listening to a single 70 minute-long track? I mean, that might be acceptable in a club, where one can always zone out and watch smokin' Japanese babes lolling up against bassbins, or a nu-skool voguing contest over by the unisex lavvies. At home, though, I question Sasha's selection of monotony.

After 140+ minutes of this set, you get the nasty notion that spinning "Get Lost" was the bravest choice the duo made. The remainder of these tracks sound very similar. Granted, the huge, melodramatic drops and builds that so effectively characterize most trance sets are thankfully absent. But in their place is a subdued tech-house longeur that hardly justifies a two-hour prolonging.

Communicate strikes me a curious way to capitalize upon all the press that Sasha and Digweed have been receiving as of late. Rather than living up to, or-- imagine!-- exceeding expectations like Darren Emerson does on his startling Global Underground: Uruguay mix, Sasha and Digweed appear to be suggesting that, along with setting an NYC club aflame, they can also bore you to tears in your living room. Not much here for the rebel, but plenty for the bourgeoisie.

-Paul Cooper