Cox delivers a mixed bag of techno and house dance tracks on Phuture 2000. At its best, Phuture 2000 is state-of-the-art minimal dance music. Even at its worst, the music sounds just sounds like Cox needed a couple of tunes to pad out the album.

“Phuture 2000″, the title track, is a futuristic techno track that celebrates the optimism that many felt at the turn of the millennium. The album was released in 1999, but the track’s lyrics aren’t tied to that specific event.

“Yeah” is a simple techno track built around a sample of the word “Yeah”. Cox slices it up and repeats it with enough variety to keep the track interesting. With “Latin Theme”, Cox veers off into Latin house territory. This track has uses Latin piano samples to great effect, and combines them with straight-ahead dance drum programming and live trumpet to make an upbeat dance track.

Throughout the album, Cox tries out a lot of genres. On “Dr. Funk”, Cox delivers disco funk that would have been at home in the discotheques of 1978. On “The Mission”, Cox gets down to some hard trance. This is abstract, minimal trance music, techno without any acid feel to it. “Another Place” lays down the 303-style acid, though, and is a solid acid house track.

While Cox is certainly competent at any of the genre’s he explores, the result is a little schizophrenic, and you come away thinking that Cox is trying to be a jack of all trades.

Phuture 2000 is a well-crafted collection of electronic dance tracks. While it rarely feels inspired, it is a solid outing by Cox.