Wuz

by John BushA slightly different record than You, My Baby & I, Alex Gopher's preening Parliament funkboy LP of 1999, Wuz presents a deep, dark sound world of precisely programmed house music. With compatriot Demon (aka Jérémie Mondon) helping out on production, Gopher turns in an LP of chunky beats and glittering effects, occasionally referencing the disco-fied P-Funk of his first full-length, but with less of the retro crossover of Daft Punk or Les Rythmes Digitales. Gopher moves from track to track but never breaks up the mix, making Wuz very much a dancefloor record. The epic "Without You" cranks up the energy like a latter-day "Revolution 909," pausing for breath midway through for just a minute until the bass comes crashing back in. A few tracks, though, offer a (comparatively) experimental aesthetic; "Focus" deals in stuttered vocals while cavernous creaks phase through the mix, and "Long Island" detours into stop-start glitch processing (behind a steady backbeat, of course). Balancing get-on-the-floor beats with a few mind-expanding ideas, Wuz is a very nice second record from Gopher; if the identical record appeared under Daft Punk's name, fans would likely christen it an imaginative return to form.