No one could seriously deny Gerald Simpson's contribution to electronic music. As a member of 808 State, he masterminded the first credible British responses to the techno being imported from Detroit. Newbuild, 808 State's debut, created the kind of catch-up energy that few albums have ever generated. I would even argue that it's dance music's Nevermind: it defined a whole new musical landscape and depicted, in huge sweeps, an entirely fresh mode of expression. The Roland 808, the TB303, and the other rudimentary machines and devices used to create Newbuild have all become fetish items of late, and were it not for Simpson's departure, 808 State would have become the pioneering electronic act without equal.

But he did leave, and has done pretty well for himself since. He wrote the warehouse anthem "Voodoo Ray" before realizing that the voodoo within the tune was blighting him. He turned his attention away from thrashing Derrick May at his own game and took to the polyrhythmic expanses of jungle. Released on his own Juicebox label, 28 Gun Bad Boy and Black Science Technology prove that when focused, Simpson is capable of disciplined soulful electronic masterworks.

Essence, however, showcases his distracted, settle-for-almost-anyone self-- the one that gets record companies interested and involved. The last time he let a company control him, they refused to release the album (High Life Low Profile, nixed by Sony). Before that, the company had messed around with Automannik and left a meager husk of a reportedly vee vee special record. Studio !K7 release Essence probably with a heap of reverence in their hearts, and that's why they can't tell him that Lady Miss Kier doesn't belong on a cigar-lounge trip-hop album that criminally disguises its avant-jungle artistry. They apparently also can't bring themselves to tell Simpson that Essence actually deserves rejection.

Geffen once sued Neil Young for producing un-Neil Young albums. And while I appreciate that artists must have the freedom in which to break down boundaries and public perceptions, I do feel that record companies should tell revered and honored artists when they're producing sub-standard stuff. And infuriatingly sub-standard Essence is.

The dead giveaway is the opener, "The Universe," an awkwardly delivered spoken word piece about the universe within our bodies and the spirituality that we house in the micro-universes of our atomic make-up. This undisciplined, unsubstantiated new age clap-trap would be far more at home in the coffeehouses of UC Berkeley than they are on Essence. "Could You Understand" strives for the emotional power of "Finley's Rainbow," Black Science Technology's crucial reworking of Finley Quaye's version of Bob Marley's "Sun is Shining," which also borrows from Jacob Miller's multiply versioned "Baby, I Love You So." Lamb's Louise Rhodes, potentially the most compatible collaborator, gives a sterling performance of the psychobabble "Humanity," which is as galling a session of fatuous ego-stroking self-actualization as anyone might hear outside of an anger-management seminar conducted by a lapsed and self-loathing cleric.

Sad to relate, there are plenty more lyrics gleaned from Borders' Self-Improvement Section. On "Universal Spirit," Wendy Page trills, "Universal spirit elevates your soul/ When your heart perceives it/ Love is in control/ Dive into the ocean/ Energize your love." At least when former Deee-Liter Lady Miss Kier steps up to the mic, she's downright strange: "Something's really happening/ Smoking sassafras/ Grass is on her arse/ Wearing out her slippers." No one can withhold the Adam Ant Award for Utter Whibble from Lady Miss Kier for such baffling cobblers!

Throughout Essence, Simpson valiantly attempts to compensate for his vocalists' inadequacies. The music he sets their Aquarius-Age warblings to is invariably some of the most sincere and artful that a drum-n-bass producer has ever committed to hard disk. Even the Bukem-ish "First Breath" remains unimpeachable due to the accurate and faultless position of each beat and sub-bass boom. "Humanity," lyrics aside, initially shuffles in a samba before Simpson's heavily echoed toms prepare us for the subtle rush of his processed breakbeats.

"Final Call" revisits rave's undeniable glories-- from the Cabaret Voltaire basslines to the Pet Shop Boys orchestral stabs, and the jack track hand claps and rimshots. The track is unashamedly nostalgic, but since Simpson pretty much invented the style, it'd be churlish to reprimand him for it. If "Fever or a Flame" were versioned (sans Wendy Page), it would doubtless reside in junglist DJs boxes for months; cleansed of insipid vocals, the track would be an unstoppable peaktime roller.

What makes Essence such a gadfly is that, had Mono or Hooverphonic released it, I'd have been thrilled that they'd escaped from the Serge Gainsbourg-sampling, goatee-stroking gulag they wandered into quite voluntarily. But as Black Science Technology unquestionably proved, a Guy Called Gerald is matchless in his ability to create faultless techno soul.

Essence mocks its creator's reputation. I can hear elements of an outstanding, possibly even genre-opening album amongst the jumble of guest vocals and conventional verse/chorus/verse structures. It's as though Simpson needs more than to create another soulful masterpiece of machine music; he needs the fleeting pleasure of being a one-hit wonder. If Simpson is mad keen on collaborating, why not hook up with Me'Shell NdegéOcello, an artist who would be equally soulful and more than capable of understanding and complimenting his exemplary machine-soul aesthetic. Until then, we must either use a mental filter to erase the inanities, or return Black Science Technology to the disc tray and wait for another five years to pass before Simpson releases another comeback.

-Paul Cooper