Elephant Sound

by Becky Byrkit The moonlit Eastern dance rhythms and oasis-fresh sitar funk that the Ropeman ladles out from his debut album present grooves most dancefloor mixcrafters hear only in their sweetest dreams. Elephant Sound graciously presents eleven sweeping instrumentals that escalate with a kind of of New Age space-movie buildup. "Mission To The Moog" is a postmodern hip-hop floor trembler, which features *****en samples from Mission Control and Neil Armstrong on his Apollo 11 journey a la the old Nels Peterson All-Star sample orgies. More journeys into the unknown include the obscure but ultimately mesmerizing "Dog In The Piano," with silly lyrics and more than a little Tipper Gore-infuriating morphology. Other choice moments include the sparkly "Chairman Of The Board" and the brittler, poppier "Your Own Enemy," which brings new techno oomph to a genre that has threatened to flatten out and die of late. Released as a single, "66 Metres" features the freakish banshee vocals of Shahin Badar, last heard on "Smack My ***** Up." Brighton-based production swami Sanj Sen is the button-man behind all this unchecked fun, managing to make a record that combines the most agreeable moments of The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim in a single sleeve to be proud of.