Lust

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Could Lust be only the second Depth Charge album from studio mastermind J. Saul Kane? Given Kane's immeasurable contributions to the cause and convergence of techno, electro, and hip hop, it does seem incredible that the follow-up to 1994's groundbreaking Nine Deadly Venoms should just be seeing the light of day five years later. Judging from the album's saucy title, Kane has outgrown Kung Fu flicks and moved on to more adult subject matter. A hip-grinding Serge Gainsbourg cover ('Harley Davidson') and the randy 'Sex Sluts n' Heaven' suit this older, maturer Depth Charge. But it's the stereophonic bravado of such tracks as 'Bounty Killer III,' a slapstick, dubbed-in-Spanish sci-fi mob hit at the 110th Street Corral, that evidences Kane's real growth - from innovative, sample-shuffling producer into grand-scale sound designer. Tracks like 'T.D.A.' and 'Streets of Gold' go for the full-on Cinemascope surround-sound experience, winding their tortuously Doppler-effected way between spatially disoriented samples, ambient interludes, chunky beats, and receding grooves. Kane presents sound in the round, the Blaxploitation strut of 'Blue Lipps' coming at you from a full, neck-twisting 360° - guns blazing; cop-cruisers screeching; lights, disco balls, and gold chains flashing. 'Dreaming of the Jungle' scoops up a squabbling couple from the tawdry concerns and domestic doldrums of a monochromatic film noir existence and drops the pair (still lost in the heat of flaring tempers) amid a prime tract of shag-deep Kalahari funk. The trippy hip hop of 'So You Want to Be a Secret Agent?' and 'Genius of Sci-Fi' take a stealthy turn away from lubricious electro-funk to survey the dubbed-out downtempo domain of Ninja Tune, Pussyfoot, or Wordsound from Kane's refreshing 3-D perspective. To compound the delicious disorientation, Lust is sequenced as a single, epic event. 'The Snare,' an interstitial, Caustic Window-styled brain-pan rattling, serves as a perfectly timed dissolve into the dark, Octagon Man machine-scape of '21.3.1993,' the latter setting the stage in turn for the lighter, Eon-esque tech-trance of 'Desire.' Throughout the album, musical and dialogic fade-outs unite isolated scenes within Lust's convoluted grand design. Nearly five years in the making, the impressive Lust appears to be Kane's conspectus - the missing link between his Electron Industries and D.C. Recordings labels finally revealed.