Lida Husik - Faith in Space (1998)

As a continuation of Husik's collaboration with techno wizard Beaumont Hannant, Faith in Space drives harder than much of her previous work but continues to find the space to, well, space out. Paul Weller's "Monday" is given the perfect treatment as a sleepy afterthought, with Husik playing the part of the haughty chanteuse too bored to actually want to see her lover again despite the lyric's conceit. "New Miss NYC" is somewhere between the austerity of an early-'70s Pink Floyd jam and the chaos of the dance floor's call. Hannant shifts the beats around without herking and jerking the landscape, but its Husik's show. Her subliminal crooning harks back to the days of '60s pop icons Marianne Faithfull and Françoise Hardy, but in a much-welcomed modern context. --Rob O'Connor