by John Bush
Mild mannered label entrepreneur by day, club freakazoid by night, Curtis A. Jones continues his exploration of white-knuckled paranoia in an acid house context with typically grand results. Though the title hardly makes him sound like a prophet, Green Velvet has a lot to say here, and a raft of great productions to back him up. The opener, &Genedefekt,& is his usual dystopian rant with equally stark beats and pocket-calculator effects cribbed from Kraftwerk, while the highlight &La La Land& hilariously sends up the SoCal rave scene -- complete with Jones' rhythmic robot vocals and a classic chorus to file with Jefferson Airplane's &White Rabbit&: &Somethin' 'bout those little pills, unreal the thrills they yield/Until they kill a million brain cells.& Whatever is just as packed with genius tracks as his previous work, though Jones appears to be running out of ideas; there's really not much difference between early Green Velvet classics like &Answering Machine& or &The Stalker& and a few tracks here (&Stranj,& &Stop Lyin'&), except they sounded much fresher back then.