A while ago, our new Attorney General, John "Sugar Nuts" Ashcroft, stated that the National Endowment for the Arts should be abolished because it does not benefit "the art of the great masses." He went on to point out that, while he gets no subsidy for going to see Garth Brooks, some rich opera fan in a suit with a Lexus does.

The more I think about this, the more I think it's a good thing John Ashcroft isn't British. If he were, then, in addition to blacks, gays, and opera fans with fancy imported cars, he would have to add raver kids in ugly pants to his list of enemies. See, as opposed to our government's endowment for the arts, which only benefits the liberal snobs who enjoy things such as jazz, educational television, and the performing arts, the English government has actually broken into the world of dance and electronic music, funding DJ Mike Dred, aka the Kosmik Kommando, in the production of an album, as well as a tour. This apparently stirred up quite a ruckus in Parliament, where one members was reported to have called Dred's beats "As phat as Fergie's bum!" Prime Minister Tony Blair, realizing that perhaps publicly lauding the Spice Girls is not the best way to make Britannia "cool," was seen sucking a pacifier at a press conference.

Perhaps it isn't fair to equate Mike Dred so closely with rave and club music, though. While his music, and his talents as a live DJ, have certainly made their way into the club scene, Dred has never been content to make music that is simply danceable. With Laptop Dancing, his wishes to lay down funky beats and experiment exist in almost perfect harmony, with a few sad genre stereotypes preventing the album from achieving genuine greatness.

Laptop Dancing starts off at its weakest, with "Amerika Offline." (All the titles use k's instead of c's-- klever!) The track opens with a sample of some politician speaking in a monotone about impeachment or something. It's a sad electronica cliché. But at least it isn't a vocoder. Despite this weak leadoff, the track quickly redeems itself by showcasing Mike Dred doing what he does best: manipulating cool sounds. Drum machine beats are played backwards; synths squelch and burble. Pure twisted electronic joy.

Sadly, not all of the annoyances on Laptop Dancing are followed by moments of excellence. While "Amerika Offline" is, thankfully, devoid of vocoder, "She's Robotik [Automatik]," predictably, is not. No effort is even made for the computerized voice say anything interesting; it just spouts typical annoying pseudo sci-fi fare. Our idea of what sounds "futuristic" in music has barely changed in fifty years! Isn't it about time we came up with some new annoying futuristic sounds to complain about?

While painful lapses into trite Space Odysseys certainly slow Laptop Dancing down, they certainly aren't enough to sink it. What sets Mike Dred apart from the bulk of DJ/producers is his refusal to settle into simple, danceable grooves. There's always something interesting happening in his music: an accent shifting, a drum loop being reversed, a synthesizer modulating through a sweep filter, or simply a subtle shift in melody. It's a far cry from instant dance music; the level of detail and intricacy reflects a great deal of thought and effort being put into the music.

So it seems that the English government did well with its choice to make Mike Dred the first government-sanctioned dance music artist. Anyone this capable of maintaining such high levels of adventurousness without sacrificing driving dance beats deserves recognition as a valuable musical asset. And if he drops the kitsch, he could become nothing short of a national treasure.

-Matt LeMay