Cream
A good dance compilation is designed to distract from woe and prompt booty-shaking. Sandra Collins is a master of trance-groove trench-digging--her specialty is beat building, and not much else. As she did with 2000'sTranceport 3mix, Collins uses theCreamplatform to spin music for twilight flexing, but with a militaristic edge.Tranceport 3offered trance of epic scale, butCreamis more ambient and minimal. Much of the album is simply a 4/4 beat with little adornment except the occasional alien percussion or a ghostly voice sampled and inserted for effect. Each track supports the current Collins manifesto of minimal dance music for quick clubbing, but these tracks foster an insular mood of cold, sleek uniformity.Carissa Mondavi's "Solid Ground" is the ambient-ish intro, with a warm vocal and tribal percussion aiding the glowing groove. The CD builds slowly, changing little while layering thin synth and bass sounds, rolling through Manhattan's "Robot Funk 2001" and 16th Element's "Warp" until the repetitive beat grows harder and more direct with Traveller & Quest's "Chaos Engine."High hats get busier and the beat syncopates for Voyager's "Derangement of the Senses." This track--along with Chiller Twist's "Do You Hear It?"--provide the album's mellow mid-section. "Thriller"-esque accents in the latter make the welcome rests sound corny, not profound. The closing tracks by JBN, T-Empo and Maurice & Noble ratchet up the intensity, but nowhere near the intense levels ofTranceport 3. Is Collins mellowing with age, or simply becoming more cerebral? HerCreammix shows a clever DJ keeping it hard, lean, and mysterious.--Ken Micallef