Rhythm and muse

On a cool Saturday afternoon in a nondescript Hollywood photo studio, the members of Dangerous Muse--the new and impossibly pretty electronic dance-pop duo of Mike Furey and Tom Napack--prepare to shoot their first music video. It's for their hit single "The Rejection," which in November 2005 debuted at number 2 on the iTunes dance charts with practically zero promotion. As a skeleton crew preps the small, all-white set--an homage to cheap and simple early-'80s videos--vocalist and lyricist Mike, 23, consults with director Mike Korbic over the video's female dancers' outfits. Keyboardist and programmer Tom, 21, chills off to the side to a mix CD of dance music (Soft Cell, New Order) playing in the background, at one point quietly mimicking the chords to Madonna's newest single, "Sorry," on his trusty "keytar."

Finally, the set in place, the proto-Robert Palmer black lace and stiletto outfits OK'd, Mike--sporting the requisite skintight low-rise jeans and loose-fitting black top--gets into place, the dancers strategically placed around him, waiting for the director's cue. Korbic calls action, then for playback. The song's

Depeche Mode-esque synth chirps pump through the speakers, and the women swarm Mike, clawing at his clothes and pulling him to the floor as he struggles to sing to the camera lyrics like "I'd like to like you like you like me / But I can't, please understand."

The meaning seems clear--a sexy gay boy trying his best to fend off rabid female suitors. "It can definitely be read that way, for sure," Mike says with a smile the next day by the rooftop pool of a West Hollywood hotel. But he continues, "I would like to leave it up to the individual listening to the song. I wouldn't want to limited it to any specific interpretation."

Mike's not being cagey. He and Tom are the product of a growing pansexual New York City nightlife they discovered while students at Fordham University in the Bronx, so much so that when asked they both avoid placing a definitive flag anywhere on the Kinsey scale of sexuality.