Nu Breed Global Underground: Anthony Pappa

Boxed Records, which has built legions of loyal followers by marshaling the world's best-known trance DJs for their Global Underground series, now look to mine a new generation of mixologists bubbling just under the surface. This first double-CD entry in the Nu-Breed series, featuring Italian-Australian DJ Anthony Pappa, incorporates a darker, more house-oriented sound than most of the GU releases, and it admirably stays away from any obvious glow-stick-waving anthems. Even while Pappa's mix does, without a doubt, adhere to the trance code that has served others of his ilk so well, there's a progressive, genre-skipping resourcefulness that provides snap and crackle to the beats. Check out the tinny grooves and electronic funk of Moonface's "Overactive" on the second CD, which morphs beautifully into the industrial tinges of Humate's "Burning Man" off German's underground Superstition label, or the ultradeep trance of Austin Leeds's "Rhythm Reigns" as it burrows deeply under your sweat-drenched skin. Talented, nameless shadow-men lurk behind turntables in clubs all over the world. Pappa, however, after this dreamy and admirable effort, should soon find his name on everyone's lips. --Matthew Cooke