Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

iiO consists of a New York musician/dj named Markus Moser (not to be confused with the guitarist…I think) and vocalist/lyricist Nadia Ali. The duo have had a passel of club hits in 2006 and 2007 --- “Is It Love,” “Kiss You, ” “Chastity,” “Tantric,” “Be It,” --- which have all been remixed here by such dance genre luminaries as Starkillers, Major Key, and F. Bailey, along with a reworking of “Rapture,” their signature composition. I am not familiar with the original releases of any of these tracks, so I am unable to give you an intelligent comparison between the two. Remixing an original composition can in general can be a two edged sword, more so where there is no baseline point of comparison. But there’s an additional hangup here.

The problem with reviewing a dance mix disc such as RECONSTRUCTION TIME: The Best of iiO Remixed --- at least as seen from the perspective of someone outside of the genre --- is how to do so properly when by the nature of the media it exists outside of its intended context. Dance music of this nature is best heard, perhaps should only be heard, in the club context. It is, I am aware, all over the place, in commercials and on car stereos and even the common areas of the W Hotel properties (lending a certain unintended ambience to the men’s rooms, yes indeed!). Accordingly, I’m going to get to the basics, and answer the question that is sometimes neglected to be asked when inquiring about such things: did I like the disc? The answer is yes, very much, from beginning to end.

To my ears --- white, mid-50s, conservative Republican, solidly heterosexual, and thus so far outside of the intended demographic for this music that I am probably not even on the same planet --- RECONSTRUCTION TIME is everything that a dance release of this type should be. There are incessant, hypnotic rhythms, electronically created by Moser, underneath interesting, compelling lyrics half-chanted, half-sung by the sensuous Ali. As good as this sounds sitting in my office or on the car stereo while exceeding the speed limits late at night, in its proper setting --- over an ear-splitting sound system, in a dark room with throbbing lights, the press of bodies, and yes, under the influence of substances that compress and elongate time --- RECONSTRUCTION TIME must sound incredible. In any setting, however, RECONSTRUCTION TIME gets the job done. Recommended.