Escape velocity

>> Electric Lounge goes into orbit

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

In space, the blurb from Alien once told us, no one can hear you scream. In most spaces playing electronic music in this town, a scream will barely register over the gigantic thud and whoosh of the sound system. Regular vocal transmissions generally disappear into the ether.

Saucerville 55, co-navigator and musical engineer of the new Electric Lounge nights at classy, comfy Jazzi'z, explains the mandate of his--excuse me--enterprise. "The idea was to combine two worlds in one, something futuristic but old-fashioned. We wanted to create a space where people could be comfortable, talking and communicating without being drowned out by the music. At the same time, we want to give people something to listen to other than Sinatra. Don't get me wrong, Sinatra's great, but we want to play music people can take into the new millennium."

Therefore, Mondays through Wednesdays, electronic music takes precedent over cocktail jazz and torch songs. Moreover, and this is the part that sold me, the flight crew will be decked out in shiny, retrofuturistic jumpsuits. Inspired by a tradition of sci-fi chic running from the classic TV series UFO (with its gorgeous, violet-haired moonbase agents, like the one pictured here) to Luc Besson's silly-but-stylish Fifth Element (remember Gaultier's astro-stewardess get-ups?), the outfits are lovingly designed by Eva B. Waitresses will be in silver, bar staff in gold and Saucerville himself in "an orange spacesuit type-of-thing arrangement."

Saucerville will be manning the captain's chair, musically, but intends to beam in occasional relief. "Thing is, we don't call them DJs, we call them 'atmosphere pilots.' So we'll have our pilots and sometimes live acts as well, playing anything from minimalist electronica to trance--we go right across the spectrum, but at a reasonable volume." He also guarantees gravity and air pressure roughly equivalent to that of dear old Earth.

Electric Lounge happens Mondays through Wednesdays at Jazzi'z, 8:30pm-3am, $3