Pitchfork

There's a metaphor hidden in the picture of Tiga on the cover of this mix. As always, the Canadian DJ looks like a doll: made-up and over-styled, otherworldly, and proud as ever of his unnaturally slim hips. But-- as always-- he also looks like he doesn't belong there; like the worst yearbook portraits, the person in the picture seems slightly out-of-place, stiff and uncomfortable in someone else's clothes. Just imagine his hand under his chin in a "thoughtful" pose, knowing there's a devastating pimple smeared over with foundation.

The boudoir pictured here belongs the Tiga of champagne-or-cocaine European electro, the Tiga who wrapped up a trend's worth of International Deejay Gigolos singles with his American Gigolo mix and gave them a public face with his half-assed smash-hit cover of "Sunglasses at Night." But trends-- especially the type you can dance to-- are built to mutate, and the sound of those Miss Kittin and Vitalic singles is already a bit, as they say, last year.

But that's only the portrait. The good news for us is that the boudoir and wardrobe are, and have always been, rentals: Tiga was delivering the well-groomed tech-house well before electro started clashing, and now-- as the rigid swirl of that first thrilling pop wave spirals off in a dozen directions-- he shows up to each party in different suits. Admittedly, his novelty-tie cover of Nelly's "Hot in Herre" was probably more fun for him than it was for us, but on this contribution to the DJ Kicks mix series, he's not only resplendent, he's at home, digging well beyond the obvious to give us a mix that's both refreshing and all Tiga. The brief detour through Gigolo grind has brought him back to his best pair of cigarette-leg jeans: a drippy, soulful, and surprisingly light-touch party mix of vividly housey electro, the usual grainy fog suddenly broken by bright lights and the lingering smiles of Soft Cell, ABC, maybe even Cameo.

It's only five minutes in, for instance, when Playgroup's instrumental mix of Chromeo's "You're So Gangsta" gives you the good-time vapors with-- praise heaven-- a saxophone solo, closing its eyes and dancing rapturously over the teched-up echo of a funk guitar lick. The next few tracks trade techno grids with disco bass grooves and squeaky clavi-funk, shaking and chuckling their way up to a necessary high point: DFA's hand-clapping remix of Le Tigre's "Deceptacon" struts happily along like Stevie Wonder with riot-grrl cheerleading. The whole first half of this mix is a flat-out good time: it's like watching a hipster's scowl gradually crumble. There's still the deep, rich pulse of the whole new-electro project, but it's as if someone's put on a pink headband and switched on the lights, letting loose the playful groove and pastel-colored electric funk too many people have carefully expunged from their 80s memories.

And then starts something possibly better. "Deceptacon" slides seamlessly into Soft Cell's magnificent "...So", where synth piano and chimes keep up the disco, even as the gauzy swells draw you deeper into dark. By the time Codec & Flexor's "Time Has Changed" comes around, the depths have found their soul: the whirring tech beat continues, but the synth pulse drops away to an airy hum and a set of rich, earnest vocals, a ballad with its trenchcoat collar turned suavely up. Two tracks later comes a surprise to beat that first saxophone: Red Zone's remix of Stevie V.'s "Dirty Cash", wherein a vocal hook (that always sat in Soul II Soul's shadow) bursts through like its explicit aim was always to make Germanic electro monotony look weak. The cuts here slip darker and throb more relentlessly, but they still find way more of the "disco" in Italo-disco.

So begins the end, wherein Tiga skirts close around the old electro mode and brings us to another remix highlight, this time the fabulous electric pop of Martini Bros., as handled by Black Strobe. "The Biggest Fan"-- like the pop-ready chug of TokTok vs. Soffy O-- is a soft, sunny speeder that could theoretically command a radio like the days of old. From there it's a quick slide into another one of those Tiga covers that seems to be saying more than it should possibly be able to-- this time a New Romanticized remaking of Felix da Housecat's genre-defining "Madame Hollywood", Miss Kittin's provocative chant replaced with Tiga himself, crooning like a world-weary Simon LeBon.

There's a second metaphor here. Perched up on these two singles-- "The Biggest Fan" with its happy ode to narcissism, and "Mister Hollywood" with its newly-soulful pop stride-- the whole project seems to have been reframed: suddenly it's become more human, more pop, more relaxed, and a dozen times more fun. Half of the excitement right now-- as people start wandering away from the main stage of the 2001 electro sound-- lies in watching all of the different directions they wander. The corner Tiga's returned to is terrific; what's even better is the vague sense that he could just as easily choose to wander elsewhere, and wind up making you change your mind about the whole thing all over again.