If you"re depressed, the blues could send you out the window. But this make-you-sweat carnival compilation release, produced by Trinidad and Tobago"s celebrated disc jockey Chinese Laundry (who takes his on-mic prerogative in "Engine Sparking") for his eponymous label, is better than Prozac. Lead track "De River" infuses galloping soca beats into a gospel treasure; Iwer George gets the party rocking in a secular vein with the wave-your-hand-in-the-air soca exhortation "Tiefin Ah Wine," and it"s nonstop booty rockers from there. After years of commands to wave hands, flags, bushes, whatever in the air in countless soca tunes, you have to hand it to Anslem Douglas, who countermands those orders with "Palms on the Ground," in which revelers are told to assume the position and "wine" (their hips). Those Trinidadians can do it, too! Their sly humor goes wild in Third Base"s hilarious pro-Clinton "Playa President," including a liltingly accented rendition of "I did not have relations with that woman." Even the stern-faced reggae deejay Capleton, said by some to have kicked off reggae"s early-"90s return to "conscious" lyrics, gets a hit of carnival spirit--a small one though, as he sees plenty to criticize in his neighbor islands. --Elena Oumano