A house/dance/funk/psychedelic band that began as a duo in 1986 in New York City, with Lady Miss Kier and Super DJ Dmitry. They were joined by Jungle DJ Towa Towa in 1988. The group broke up in 1994.

tek's rating: ¾

World Clique
AllMusic; Amazon; Apple Music; Discogs; Spotify; Wikipedia

The band's first album, released in 1990. I think this must be one of the earliest CDs in my collection, and I probably listened to it more than most of my CDs in the 90s. I'm reviewing it in 2024. The liner notes contain song lyrics, as well as a little sketch comic thing about the three members of the band and how they came together.

1. "Deee-Lite Theme": A good little introduction to the band.

2. "Good Beat": It's got a good beat, naturally. But all the songs have that.

3. "Power of Love": The second single from the album, but probably not the second most memorable song, for me. I like it, but I like some other tracks better.

4. "Try Me On... I'm Very You": The longest track, at 5:14. It's good, but I could stand for it to be a little bit shorter.

5. "Smile On": Probably one of my better-remembered songs from the album, even if I'm not much of a smiler, myself.

6. "What Is Love?": (Not to be confused with the Haddaway song.) How do you say... deeelite-ful?

7. "World Clique": I dunno, wouldn't it be nice if the world was actually one big clique?

8. "E.S.P.": This is pretty cool. Supernatural? Perhaps.

9. "Groove Is In the Heart": The first and biggest single from the album, and the song I like most and remember best from the band. It's a true classic. I'd rate it at least two hearts.

10. "Who Was That?": Another of my better-remembered songs, just because it's so weird. I like it.

11. "Deep-Ending": I'm not actually sure what's going on here, or whether what's going on is good or bad. But the song, at least, is good.

12. "Build the Bridge": This one's instrumental; it has some vocals, but no lyrics. But it's cool.

Well, I find all the tracks at least somewhat memorable, and I like all of them. But at lot of them are slower than I remembered, and somewhat simplistic, compared to the stuff done by today's DJs. So I'm giving the album as a whole a lower rating than I expected to before I listened to it to do a review. But it's still pretty good.

tek's rating:

Infinity Within
AllMusic; Amazon; Apple Music; Discogs; Spotify; Wikipedia

This is the band's second studio album, released in 1992. Amazon informs me that I ordered it in 2004, which despite being twenty frickin' years ago sounds a lot more recent than I would have guessed that I got it. The case... I dunno, it's like a digipak or something, but the way you open it is weird. Anyway, the liner notes contain song lyrics. And I'm reviewing this in 2024.

1. "I.F.O. (Identified Flying Object)": This features the band Arrested Development, which is cool. But aside from their part, I feel kind of "meh" about the track.

2. "Runaway": This is the first single from the album. Before re-listening to the CD, I tried watching a little bit of the music video for this song, and didn't find it memorable at all, but listening to just the song on the CD, it does sound kind of memorable. Not really as good as the songs on "World Clique", but it's good.

3. "Heart Be Still": Not bad, but it feels like filler, to me. Pleasant enough filler.

4. "I Won't Give Up": This sounds more like pop than the band's usual fare, but still has enough of the funkiness of a Deee-Lite song. I think it's okay, but I like their more techno/dance stuff better.

5. "Vote, Baby, Vote": This is only about half a minute long, and there's not much to it. Just encouraging people to vote, which is always a good message.

6. "Two Clouds above Nine": This features Jamal-ski, who I've never heard of. He does some, like, reggae-rap, or whatever. It's pretty cool. The whole track is decent.

7. "Electric Shock": More pleasant filler.

8. "I Had a Dream I Was Falling through a Hole in the Ozone Layer": This seems to be an environmental message about pollution, and climate change, and stuff. It's a good message, but I don't think it's a great song; not bad, though. There's a really weird part in the middle that doesn't sound like the rest of the song.

9. "Fuddy Duddy Judge": This features Michael Franti, who I know from the song "Television, the Drug of the Nation" by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy; maybe some other stuff, I'm not sure. It's another message song, about social activism or something? I dunno, the lyrics kind of meander all over the place, but I like it.

10. "Pussycat Meow": Kind of weird, but cute and amusing. And oddly appropriate; I feel like it would be weirder for Miss Kier not to have a cat song.

11. "Thank You Everyday": This is the longest song on the album, at 6:22. It's okay, because pretty much everything Deee-Lite does is at least okay. But I'm not really wild about it.

12. "Rubber Lover": Okay, so this one advocates the use of condoms while "having a good time". It's a good message, but a bit risqué for my taste.

13. "Come on in, the Dreams Are Fine": This one also features Arrested Development, seemingly just for a little bit at the beginning. Beyond that, the song is... fine. Filler-y, but fine.

14. "Love Is Everything" (bonus track): This is kind of slower and softer than most of the songs, but it still sounds like Deee-Lite. It's okay.

So, unlike the first album, only one song on this one sounds even a little bit familiar to me. I like the album, but there's nothing about it I find super memorable, and nothing that really stands out for me the way "Groove Is in the Heart" stands out on the first album.