Cerrone

February 22 - 29, 1 9 9 6

*** Cerrone

CERRONE: BEST

(Pure)

With authentic Eurodisco riding high on the wings of pop hits by artists like La Bouche, Corona, and Whigfield, it's only right that Jean-Marc Cerrone, one of Eurodisco's most important originators, should be the subject of this 13-track remix selection of favorite dance songs from his 1976-'85 16-album oeuvre. Cerrone's 15-minute compositions -- pastel in color and kittenish fluffy in tone, arranged from bits of fusion jazz, piano concerto, and Brazilian samba -- venture into a dangerous dreamland but on a whisper and a tiptoe, bright and cool. His songs sound nothing like the heavy-footed loneliness described by today's house music.

It's unfortunate, then, that the DJs herein hired to remix him insist on horseshoeing the CD's selections with just this kind of house beat. But somehow the risky girlishness of flighty melodies like "Give Me Love," "Trippin' on the Moon," "Cerrone's Paradise," and two versions of "Mercy" effortlessly trump the rhythmic heaviness. Because what you notice is soft, high dance babes' voices whirling and rushing. In tours de force like "Love in C Minor" and "Supernature," the voices cry out for joy, gorgeously, irrationally, like thirsty sorceresses with their eyes aslant.

-- Michael Freedberg