Dance music dos & don'ts: it's White Party season, and you want music that will make you shake it, Four Advocate music critics offer their picks for must-buy and must-avoid dance music collections.

MARGARET COBLE 

BUY: Kaskade: San Francisco Sessions, v. 4--Soundtrack to the Soul (Om)

DJ-producer Ryan Raddon (a.k.a. Kaskade) bas quickly become a poster boy for all that is good and hopeful about the present and future of deep house music, as epitomized by this smoothly blended 14-track set of sexy, soulful, uplifting beats. He so beautifully captures the positive vibe, sophisticated quality, and utter danceability of the thriving West Coast scene via stick-in-your-head singles (Rithma's "Love and Music"), rare finds (the Pound Boys featuring Thea Austin's "Funky Music"), and his own underground hits ("It's You, Ifs Me"), resulting h, a must-have mix for those looking for something left of the circuit center.

AVOID: Louie Devito: NYC Underground Party Volume 6 (Dee-Vee Music)

Such a disappointment, especially considering the winning formula of previous megaselling volumes that mode this construction worker-turned DJ's name. Too much filler, uninspired mixing, and the inclusion of possibly the worst dance single in recent history (P.Diddy's "Let's Get Ill") add up to a set that goes nowhere. Don't. bother.

LARRY FLICK

BUY: City Series: The Sex, the City, the Music (Petrol)

Australia's Petrol Records label continues its ongoing collection from various underground club scenes around the world. Not only does City Series explore the grooves you're likely to find on turntables in Sydney, Melbourne, Paris, Istanbul, Berlin, Tokyo, and New York with a disc for each city, it also provides a fairly thorough cultural tour-guide listing of clubs, cafes, and various media. Although not queer exclusive, each, disc has an electic, adventurous tone that's notably inclusive. Of the cities initially showcased, Sydney and Berlin are the most enticing, with hard-edged, multitempo beats that reach beyond a typical house-disco pace. Essential listening for anyone who is tired of the same ol' hits-remixed club fodder.

AVOID: Let's Hear It for the Boy, Vol. 3 (Megahit)

Just what queers need--another collection "designed" to suit our alleged club tastes. But are tweety, woefully dated Eurodisco renditions of pop bits like Madonna's "Die Another Day" and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" truly reflective of gay tastes? The shirtless, toned lad gracing the CD sleeve would have us believe so. Apparently, the real way to gel men to buy this two-disc compilation is to have all of the blood rush from one head to the other first.

KURT B. REIGHLEY

BUY: James Lavelle, GU #026: Romania (Global Underground)

James Lavelle likes it both ways: His second double-disc mix for the GU all-star" series rumbles with dark, funky dance beats, but the British DJ producer--whose side project, Unkle, has collaborated with members of Radiohead and Beastie Boys--shows a penchant for rock too. Disc 1 kicks off with the percussive Unkle remix of "No One Knows" by modern-day metalheads Queens of the Stone Age; alternative bands South and Flaming Lips figure prominently too. Using sudden shifts in tone raid tempo to create added drama, and sexing things up with sweaty deep house fare like Meat Katie and Lee Coombs's "Import," this unconventional set simultaneously celebrates head-banging and hip-shaking.

AVOID: Kieoki, Kill the DJ (Hypnotic/ Cleopatra)

A rapid-fire set composed primarily of '70s composed and New Wave classics. The problem? Almost all of the 29 cuts are tinny new synth-pop--excuse me, "electroclash'--covers by unknowns, laid out like a smorgasbord of stale junk food. Kill The DJ? Why bother-this atrocity is commercial suicide.

DAVE WHITE

BUY: Derrick L. Carter, Nearest Hits & Greatest Misses (Classic Music Company)

House isn't dead, exactly; it. just needs more transfusions than it's been getting lately. Luckily, Chicago native Derrick L. Carter, one of house music's unsung bar-raisers, is around to pump quirky new life into the genre every rime he operates. Carter last released a full-length album for the United States in 2002, the dizzying Squaredancing in a Roundhouse, and in lute 2003 offered this decidedly offbeat remix collection, in which he retools such diverse fare as postrock pioneers Tortoise and the Human League's "Don't You Want Me." His Trademark is classic soulful house by way of chunky, rubbery, headphone-worthy percussion, proving that dance music can be idiosyncratic, artful, and ass-shakingly accessible.

AVOID: Susan Morabito, Blue Ball Volume 3.0 (Centaur)

Circuit parties have a lot to answer for, but perhaps their worst offense is the continued proliferation of disappointing mix CDs like this one. Peppered with a few interesting Cuts--John Ciafone's "Everyday" and a double shot of offbeat house by Layo & Bushwacka!--but otherwise stuffed with tribal filler, its crime is its conformity.