SHAKTI WITH JOHN McLAUGHLIN— Natural Elements (Columbia)::I'm not quite sure why this spiritually slanted music slips through my cynicism but it does. Maybe it's "cause Shakti don't need banks of amps to get energized or maybe it's "cause the lack of a spotlight lately has allowed McLaughlin's gifts to grow rather than stagnate like they did with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Anyway, this time around, the band moves westward from its Indian improv base, inserting Cr$am riffs here, timbales and Spanish-tinged melodies there, while tying the tunes down to airplayable lengths. And if "Get Down And Sruti" ain't cosmic boogie music at its best, I wanna know what is. M.D.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS—Originaf Soundtrack (Arista)::Being a child of the 60's, I'm also a child of paranoia. It's okay because we've all come to grips with it, some of us actually getting some kind of perverse pleasure in it, so when Close Encounters hit the (big) screen in a cinematic pool of silverbacked image the first thing that struck this kid's indented and indentured brainpan was PARANOIA. After the fifth drink you really start to believe that the government paid Steven Spielberg 20 million bucks to make a movie that'd condition the populace to the fact that we've already had third encounters and Kissinger's been handling shuttle diplomacy to the galaxies for sometime now. Like I said, PARANOIA. As far as the music goes I like the Parliaments Live better because shit, man, niggers in space—wow!!!!