Side projects like
the Ananda Project are unusual accessories for people like
Chris Brann. Began as a high-strung house aberration somewhere between the sandy disco of Stardust and the hyper giggle of two-step, now steered so far out of his control that everybody from King Street to
Pete Tong have demanded more from this troubled venture. And it is troubled. Forget its roots,
the Ananda Project has neither the romanticism of Ibiza memories or the resurgent lust of U.K. garage. Even when he hands the reins over to System Bleater and G-Pal (three times, as it turns out), the final result is not of someone who has a keen sense of mutilation but of someone crossing the borders of incongruent genres far before he's got a handle on any one of them.