"I WAS THREE when the '80s started.... I was there but I wasn't conscious of it." Pretentious and proud, Jacques Lu Cont, a.k.a. Les Rythmes Digitales, is the latest accumulation in that cloud of new DJ and disco gas to float over the Atlantic from France. Lu Cont easily fills the worn-out sneakers Moby abandoned sometime in the last decade, robbing the tombs of past masters like New Order, Human League, and 808 State for a fresh albeit mindless revival of unabashed dance monotony. Flirting with the odor of new wave, Lu Cont even sought out Pretty in Pink soundtrack outlaw Nick Kershaw for vocal duties on his first-ever LP.

Darkdancer is ripe for the homo-heavy club arena. Without any millennial message to get in the way, the beats come on in thick and gooey globs. The album's only motivation is to get you to turn off your head so your body can submit to its redundant musical dictatorship. Songs like "Hypnotize," "Music Make You Lose Control," and "(Hey You) What's That Sound?" rely on tortuous repetition, eventually forcing you to submit or flee. Nowhere is the term "love it or hate it" more applicable than to Les Rythmes Digitales.

Having remixed singles from Cornershop, Placebo, Pavement (?!), and fellow French compatriots Cassius, Lu Cont has now made his way stateside for his first ever U.S. tour, complete with a full band and stage show. Lu Cont relishes detail, playing up a wishful devil persona resplendent in red PVC cape and glowing horns. Admittedly, it's mostly for shits and giggles. Once a genre of music that was considered the low point of humanity, disco has achieved a saturation to rival the reconstructed chic that it frequently soundtracks on the runway. Lu Cont may very well be ripping a new asshole in disco's ridiculously tight and preposterous attitude. Whether or not he will have enough staying power to survive the public's hunger for retreads of dusty, bargain-bin musical horrors is up to whoever gets in this devil's bed.