DJ T.: The Pleasure Principle

DJ T. is one of the mass of European producers and entrepeneurs making cool, throbbing, Ibiza-friendly club music, spinning out endless variations of post- and pre- prefix house music. His latest LP, The Pleasure Principle, marks a shift to an exclusively production-focused career; in the past T. has worked in music journalism as well as club and label management in addition to his DJing. As with much such electronica, T.’s navigation of dance music’s endless, intercrossing lines of distinction is obscure and even superfluous to the product: mechanical, digital-age grooves and breathy, faceless vocals anchored by the sure regularity of a surely-quantized drop-and-thud beat. “City Life” executes the swift, three-chord house jump with loin-swaying finesse; “Burning” piles deadpan erotic chanting over a subversively understated rhythm with somewhat less effect. The Pleasure Principle succeeds regularly, if not remarkably, in bringing the spirit of the club down to earth. Even so, a good amount of the pleasure here exists in principle only.