I'm the Supervisor

by Stewart Mason An impressively varied collection from the Israeli duo Infected Mushroom, I'm the Supervisor adds a few more vocals than is their usual wont (in particular, the distorted, processed vocals on "Cities of the Future" recall the Prodigy) and massages the tempos more than some of their earlier albums, but is otherwise entirely of a piece. Erez Aizen and Amit Duvdevani are masters at subsuming listeners inside great throbbing walls of beats, with snatches of melody weaving through the arrangements merely for decoration. Yet there's not the bludgeoning quality of many trance records (even some of Infected Mushroom's early works); this is music that envelops -- rather than overwhelms -- the listener. Psychedelic in a way that dance music rarely has been since the heyday of the Madchester scene, the best parts of I'm the Supervisor, most notably the gamelan-like noises, cut-up samples, and old-school sequencer throb of "Bombat," are as exciting as pure dance music has been in ages.