Drill 'n' Bass – a white-bread, wise-guy version of drum-and-bass that also goes by the name fungle – gets its kicks by exceeding the speed limit on the autobahn. Funglists like Squarepusher, Plug and Animals on Wheels are velocity freaks, cramming their tracks full of hyperfast paradiddles, jacked-up tom-tom stutters and spazzy bass lines that make more sense at the slot-car-racing arcade than on the dance floor.

Amon Tobin, a Brazilian-born, England-based musician, plays this game as well as anyone. But on his third album, Permutation, he also shows that he can keep your interest when slow and low is the tempo. "Like Regular Chickens," the album's leadoff track, is set at the woozy pace of trip-hop. First a piano comes in, gently posing questions; then a vibraphone enters; some ominous strings descend; finally, a breakbeat workout cybernetically constructed out of jazz drumming samples, phasing effects and backward masking comes crashing home. Unlike real jazz or real jungle, the rhythm track has no forward momentum, offering instead a frenetic stasis, like a cartoon character desperately running in place until a safe falls on his head.

Two Tobin tracks appear on FunKungFusion, a two-CD compilation showcasing the beat extravaganzas of London's Ninja Tune records. Label chiefs Matt Black and Jonathon More have been goosing DJ culture since Day One – a decade ago, in their Coldcut guise, they famously remixed Yemenite singer Ofra Haza into Eric B. and Rakim's "Paid in Full." Today, Ninja Tune is the home of electro revivalists, hip-hop renegades, world-beat tricksters and lounge-culture backsliders alike. With the exception of a couple of snoozers, the thirty tracks on FunKungFusion are ace – ranging from Chocolate Weasel's "Music for Body Lockers," which samples a bass timbre that will sound familiar to fans of both Stanley Clarke and Seinfeld, to Kid Koala and Money Mark's clever, type-writer-driven "Carpel Tunnel Syndrome." The only drag is the producers' decision not to mix tracks together, leaving the traditional gap of silence between each cut. When the party is this good, you don't want it to stop, even for three seconds. (RS 790-791)

JEFF SALAMON