Chloé - I Hate Dancing (Human)

It might be said that clubland was ready for a bit of frost, to cover all that institutionalised hedonism in sheets of icy pathos, a universe away from panto electro and wacky eclecticism. DJ Chloé is already pushing the boundaries of what might be called a new European aloofness – take the title of this mix CD’s ultimate expression of disdain; and the cover, where she scratches her neck and stares at the ground. She looks embarrassed by my presence in the room – even though this is my room. Who does she think she is, reviving that late-Nineties house aesthetic of technique over substance, as though anyone were ever lured to a club on the promise of slickness alone? In Chloé’s own music, this same ascetic distance works wonders; tender hooks are buried under taut, dense layers of po-faced electro beats, daring you to dive in deep and uncover them. But I Hate Dancing is ‘mixed’ in more ways than one, caught between two opposing poles: great dancing music (Tiga’s ‘Pleasure from the Bass’, Voigt & Voigt’s electro-trance wickedness) and bits that, played in a club, would be more likely to make you think about heading for the bar. Still, with the exception of a handful of us strange people whose homes occasionally become makeshift discotheques populated by loons who cavort with kitchen implements on their heads, no one dances to mix CDs anyway; they are listened to by people sitting around at home. Why even bother going out at all, or leaving the sofa for that matter? The latter is surely the logical conclusion of the new European aloofness; Chloé would be proud.