Various Artists Lula Lounge: Essential Tracks, Vol. 1 Lula Lounge LLR2-1201 Rick’s Pick

If you’ve ever visited Toronto at any time other than high summer, you might have a hard time believing that these hot, humid, deeply tropical dance grooves were produced in or anywhere near that city. But Toronto’s Lula Lounge club really is a destination for lovers of Caribbean and Latin American dance music, and this wonderful disc is the soundtrack of that venue—a place that serves not only as a dance club but also as a dance studio and a gathering place for the Latino diaspora in its many forms. But the chief value of this album isn’t documentary or ethnological—it’s as an utterly brilliant party album.