Pulled Apart

What do you get when you put a woman who's a great singer and a good lyricist in the studio with some seriously skilled techno producers? You get great dance music with pretty good words, which is unusual enough to be worth noting. The thing about lyrics is that they tend to want song structure, whereas dance music tends to resist it in favor of extended grooves. So if you think you sense a certain tension between the singing and the grooving here, you're right. The good news is that it's a creative tension and it results in some very nice pop music. Terra Deva's voice may not be unique, but it sure is lovely, and uniqueness in singers is overrated anyway. "Inside" is slow, smoky and sexy (even more so in the goosed-up drum'n'bass remix version that is also provided) and she digs into her Billie Holiday bag on a mambo-ish version of "Speak Low (When You Speak Love)"). "Gratify" is short on melody but long on expressiveness. The rhythms tend toward a polite drum'n'bass clatter, but there are a few house beats as well, and it's a tribute to the production crew that even the house tracks are interesting and fun to listen to.