I first heard the name "The Angel" about five years ago, and have since seen her face in various electronica and studio magazines. I can tell you which mixing console she endorses, the mood of her studio, her sexual preference, her penchant for drum 'n bass and her opinions about how women in music get screwed over by their male counterparts -- as outlined in Keyboard magazine's geekier version of Women Who Rock. However, I had yet to hear note one, and actually began to doubt her existence due to her fairly low profile (check out her early Pharcyde remixes and work on the B-Lo thriller The Boiler Room). Though the physical beauty or subversive extra-musical manifestos usually surpass the quality of art in cases such as this, Angel's hype is well deserved -- Covert Movements far exceeds the realm of "hey, it's a girl and she's cute and she's making music so we'd better write about her"-type discs.

Though The Angel is often described as purely a drum 'n bass lover, there are many more facets to her music, and this disc demonstrates her ability to mix up genres. The set begins with "Riddim Superstar", a cut that employs drum 'n' bass's half-tempo trick, allowing quick and driving rhythms to stimulate your heart-rate while a dubby bass guitar keeps the pace from getting out of hand. Vocalists Karen Grant and The Navigator push the reggae side of the track with Jamaican accents, echoplexed vocals and, in the latter's case, quickly toasted vocal licks. Likewise, Miss Grant shapes the mood (or is Angel's music shaping her?) of "Counter Evolution", which takes over where Massive Attack's Mezzanine left off: trip-hop grooves, near-excessive reverb, snaky but subdued R&B guitar lines and snare hits that shimmer to heaven. Angel's penchant for Middle-Eastern and Indian percussion shines through on the lyrically schizophrenic "Protect Yourself" and instrumental "Rush to Dust". She shows her ability to write "songs" in the vein of Hybrid and Lamb, using a myriad of vocalists including Rain Phoenix (yes, that Rain Phoenix) on the sexy-cool "Scorched Earth" and Angie Hart on the hypnotic "Black Rush".

I don't think that Angel has missed a single trick -- she tackles hip-hop flavors, electroclash elements, et cetera. The programming is meticulous and the textures and quirky, unique noises are definitely veteran caliber. All of 60 Channels' songs are strong enough to satisfy discriminating audiophiles, sustaining interest by subtly mixing up the beat and dropping in unexpected elements, yet could easily find refuge on the dance-floor. That old saw about getting to Carnegie Hall is true: how did the Angel get here? Practice, and it's paying off.