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Green Velvet: Green Velvet

Three and a half stars

Curtis A. Jones, a.k.a. Cajmere, a.k.a. Green Velvet, is back with his sophomore release that is full of fun, catchy house music.

Green Velvet's minimalist, funky tracks recall late 70s and early 80s electro-funk (a la Kraftwerk and Gray Numan) but embellished with techno flourishes.

Green Velvet, one of the godfathers of the early 90s Chicago house scene, has been around in various guises for a while, but these tracks sound fresh and modern, despite their obvious grounding in older work.

Though the instrumentals - with their throbbing, metronomic bass lines and varied melodies and textures - are interesting on their own, the finest tracks are those on which Green Velvet flexes his interesting and oddball vocal skills.

On the hilarious "Answering Machine," a mechanical voice announces a series of dreadful messages, including a breakup from Velvet's pregnant fiancee ("The baby's not yours, so you don't have to worry about it"), a call from the Psychic Friends Network ("Your horoscope looks baaaaad. Stay in the house."), and others. Each message is punctuated with Velvet's exasperated cry of "I don't need this shit!"

Velvet's peculiar humor is also evident on the song "The Stalker," the first-person tale of an ineffective stalker confessing his frustrations to his prey.

However, the album is not just comedy-techno. Velvet is a serious artist, making innovative music. He just happens to have a sense of fun.

We see his more serious (though not somber) side on cuts like the club hit "Land of the Lost" and the sinister "Destination Unknown." Diverse sound effects, interesting poly-rhythms and discernible song structures - rare in techno - give the music an accomplished, complex feel. Velvet has a gift for combining artistically advanced elements of techno and still making the music danceable and infectious.