Various - Disco Dub House: Mixed By Carl Michaels

Sixeleven Records: 1999

Disco house was king in the late 90s, but for those weary of Yet Another DJ Mix With Olav Basoski On It, they had to dig into the underground for their fix. Enter the realm of dubby filtered house. Mostly a marriage of Chicago and San Francisco deep vibes, it wasn’t so much a celebration of production, but of DJs working their filter knobs within the mix. Shortly after, the French took notice and incorporated the same tricks within the tracks themselves to great commercial success (more on that in the next review!), but for a while sets of this sort was primarily enjoyed by rooftop shufflers.

It certainly strikes the right chord for folks of chic taste. All the vibrant bounce of disco, but held just back so you don’t spill your drink. Disco Dub House is as good of a representation of the sound as any. The label it came out on, Sixeleven Records, was primarily an outlet for Philly-based DJ/Producer Nigel Richards, so it comes as a surprise that there's little label whoring going on with this mix. In fact, it’s loaded with well-worn house anthems of the time. Angel Alanis' Chicago's Revenge, P.J.'s Happy Days, Troy Brown’s Feel Allright, DJ Sneak's All Over My Face... I could go on. If you're a house connoisseur of any level, you should have a number of these tunes already. So, it falls to the DJ to present them in a unique way, and as mentioned, that was one of the charms of the filter knob twirlers.

The DJ tasked with providing us with all these disco dub house vibes is one Carl Michaels. Who? Good question. What do you have for us, Discogs? “Hell if I know, this is the chap's only entry.” Wow, that's... unexpected. Last.fm, what about you? “Nope, nadda, zilch. Not even a picture.” Well damn, even I have a picture on my Last.fm Artist page despite only releasing mixtapes. And like hell I'm gonna Google this further, as there's no doubt dozens of 'Carl Michaels' in Pennsylvania alone. Guess ol' Carl's a mystery here. If he wasn’t a pseudonym, my best guess is he was a buddy of Nigel's, perhaps a Philly club resident; heck, maybe even an employee at Nigel's shop.

Whatever the case, his set's about par for this type of music. He makes ample use of his knobs, sometimes to comical extremes, but nothing that detracts from the whole. I'm sure it’ll seem antique to those bred on Ableton and other laptop mixing programs. Oddly, he ends the set outright before the final track, allowing Taste Experience's Release play in full, like some kind of encore.

If you're already well versed in filtered funk, there's little point in getting this. If not, the CD's an okay primer, but unessential. In the end, Disco Dub House is Yet Another DJ Mix That's A Decent Used-Shop Purchase. Yeah, there's no end to such releases, is there.

Pet Shop Boys - Disco 2

EMI Records: 1994

The whole of Pet Shop Boys’ discography seldom struck my fancy, but I cannot deny they’re responsible for some of the all-time greatest synth-pop hooks in existence. So seeing this little CD sitting in a used shop, my interest was certainly drawn - all the wonderful choruses of the Boys, given the remix treatment by some of the best in the early 90s business. “Like who?” asks you. “Like these,” says me. Rollo! Jam & Spoon! Junior Vasquez! David Morales! Farley & Heller! Coconut 1! Wait, who? Oh never mind. This should be good fun, right? Right!? Haha …ha!

The idea for Disco 2 was fine. Euro-dance was at its club culture peak, and the Pet Shop Boys had long enjoyed a comfortable relationship with DJs rinsing out remixes of their hits. It only made sense to try re-capturing the creative spark that made the first Disco album a success. The difference with that one, however, was it was more tightly controlled, with less remixers - not to mention dance music wasn’t quite so diverse in ’86. Even someone with passing familiarity with early 90s dance should realize quite a gulf had emerged between American house and euro trance. The Pet Shop Boys may have tied everything together, but the disparity between all these remixes is wide indeed.

That’s not such a big deal though. Plenty of remix albums are like that, and they’ve never- Wait, this is a DJ set too? Oh my… that can’t be good, can it? Danny Rampling was assigned the thankless task and does what he can with the material provided, but this mix is a mess. Ugly crossfade slams, tracks that abruptly end, and a bizarre arrangement hobble Disco 2’s package.

Most of these cuts were singles from the ‘93 album Very. The house remixes are a fine way to start, with Go West’s rub standing out from the pack. E Smoove, however, practically destroys Liberation, sounding like any ol’ Strictly Rhythm release rather than a Pet Shop Boys single. Vasquez and Jam & Spoon do serviceable remixes of Yesterday, but you’ve heard better from them too.

The only real highlight is Rollo and Rob Dougan’s remix of Absolutely Fabulous, probably intended as the highlight since the silly outfits the Boys wore for the video is featured on Disco 2’s cover. The original was a one-off charity single tied to a British sitcom of the same name, relegating this remix’s appearance here as the only ‘album’ exposure it got. It’s gloriously over-the-top and something of a precursor to the club anthems Rollo would be churning out with Faithless shortly after. I mean, that twitchy hook! It’s… it’s… absolutely fabulous! Perfect ‘reach for the lasers’ material.

Does Absolutely Fabulous make Disco 2 worth the price of admission? Hell no, as it’s horribly botched within the mix, abruptly cut out near the final peak. Get that as a single instead. In fact, get all of these tracks as singles if you can. This CD’s a turkey.

Various - Dimensions In Ambience 2

Quango Records: 1997

Ambient never died, but it certainly went through a fallow period during the mid-90s, media attention hopping on the trip-hop bandwagon instead. One of the few prominent labels that continued promoting ambient was Quango, a curious offshoot of the mighty Island Records (they of the coloured CD spine). Mostly releasing the sort of jazzy downtempo you'd associate with Kruder & Dorfmeister, Fila Brazillia, and other assorted 'global groovers', Quango found a comfortable role within American borders, among the earliest US-based electronic labels that could find airplay in coffee shops.

As that overview of the label may hint at, Dimensions In Ambience 2 doesn't feature the sort of noodly ambient most would expect. One of the genre tags at Discogs for this compilation is Modern Classical, and though I wouldn't go that far in describing the music contained as such, some of it wouldn't sound out of place in an art hall.

Mostly though, there's an interesting mix of ambient techno and Balearic influences going on here. The most prominently featured artist on this compilation is David Morley, a major contributor to early R & S Records releases. I've noticed a slight uptick of interest in his collected works recently, so if you're after more material of his, here's a handy place to look. The lovely, spacey Frozen, Ibizan-tinged Calibration, and his remix of Kinetic by Golden Girls (the one-off alias for Paul Hartnoll) are all solid offerings. Oddly, Kinetic is quite chipper compared to the other tracks on Dimensions... 2, almost epic. I wonder if DJ Bruno Guez, the head of Quango and oft-time compiler of these CDs, was shooting for a mid-set peak with Kinetic’s placement. This release certainly has the arrangement of such a mix, including a similar climax with the final track Movements - Part 2 from Pentatonik.

Astute trainspotters may have already noticed something odd about a couple of these tracks. For a compilation released in 1997, there’s some rather old cuts found here. Truth is more than half the material comes from the earlier era of ambient techno, and though it’s a moot point fifteen years on, it wasn’t something in Dimensions... 2’s favor at the time of its release. That year was all about pushing forward (with massive marketing muscle from the majors!), yet here’s a CD with relatively dated material. That’d be fine if it presented itself specifically as a look-back at forgotten gems from Morley, Sun Electric, and The Connected Machine, but I suspect that wasn’t the intent, what with newer material from Morley, John Beltran and PVP.

And while the music is fine for the most part, Dimensions In Ambience 2 is slight in presentation. There aren’t any moments that will floor you in the same way classic ambient techno compilations often do, and the whole package runs less than an hour long. On the other hand, it makes perfect background music, late at night, lying on a couch while sipping hot chocolate in a coffee shop.

Sandoz - Digital Lifeforms: Redux (2012 Update)

The Grey Area: 2004

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)

It's time for another edition of Sykonee Beats Himself Up Over An Old Review. Yeah, I self-deprecate mostly for jokes, but this time I'm serious. If there's one review out of all those old crummy ones I truly hate, it was the one written for Sandoz' Digital Lifeforms. Done during that awkward period where I still continued detailing track-by-track, made worse by the literal point-form of the second CD, it’s definitely a slog to read, but that’s not the whole of it. It sometimes comes off like I didn’t know what I was talking about, which was kind of true.

Anyone that spends plenty of time consuming music - of any genre - should acquire a good deal of knowledge about it in the process. So long as you never stop consuming, your knowledge base will continue expanding. I had a firm handle on most aspects of techno back then, yet I’ve learned much more since. It’s that absence of strong, informed facts regarding Richard Kirk’s influences that hurts my eyes the most. Sure, the liner notes were helpful, but I was utterly clueless as to what ‘Malian techno’ really meant.

That may be a moot point anyway. It’s not like I’ve gone and digested the entire musical history of Mali to truly appreciate Digital Lifeforms, as it’s not necessary. Understanding it, though, may have helped provide better insight into what it is about this album that just keeps getting better every time I throw it on.

Or maybe not. It's a feeling, that instinctive response one gets from music that's almost impossible to articulate. On a surface level, many things about Digital Lifeforms seems like it shouldn't work, that the production comes off hopelessly dated. Yet something about it always snags my attention, locking me into infectious grooves and harmonies. It could very well be the Kirk aesthetic, crisp but with grit; deliberate in its simplicity, allowing tracks to ebb and flow on their own merits.

It's why I despise the old review so much. I kinda-sorta touched on that aspect of Sandoz, but felt obligated to stick to 'journalistic writing', mostly ignoring my gut emotion about the music on hand and describe what occurs instead. One is taught not to write 'feeling' in journalism, as it's pure subjectivity. By that token, it's understandable why folks would prefer that format for music reviews, as all too often those trying to write reviews from a personal perspective end up lost in hyperbole and fail to offer anything insightful about the music. The best music writers I've come across capably blend the two extremes, going off on entertaining rants or interesting anecdotes while providing useful information pertinent to the release, all the while letting me, the reader, know exactly how they feel about what they're hearing.

After all, honest emotion is what we expect out of the musicians. Why not also expect the same out of those writing about those musicians' efforts as well?

DDR - Dig It / Rockin

Stay Up Forever: 2009

Did you know hard London acid techno never died? I sure as hell didn't. Like so much acid techno born of the 90s, I figured it went by the wayside once shranz and minimal took over. Sporadically an isolated instance of the genre would crop up, but nothing to suggest the scene held strong for all these years. Despite the odds, The Geezer, Rowland The Bastard, Chris Liberator, all those Stay Up Forever and Smitten guys (plus multitudes of offshoots) kept going, offering up more and more of their brand of hard, fuck-off acid techno for the true heads. Or something like that.

I only learned about this earlier in the year, when I went on a hunt for all electronic music within the scenes celebrating the Roland TB-303. Along the way I acquired several A-Sides and B-Sides, but never Both-Sides – just saw no reason to when one or the other of an EP would do. So how I ended up with this particular one, I've no idea. I don't want to make a habit of reviewing 12-inches, but whatever. It gives me a chance to talk about London F'n acid techno!

DDR, or Dave Lalouche as he’s known on his passport, is part of that original acid techno posse, often appearing in collaborations but occasionally knocking out a few solo joints too. This being a recent 12”, has there been some evolution in the London acid techno sound?

The A-Side, Dig It, starts off with strong, energetic beats, an occasional vocal sample popping up in the mix. Once the TB-303 comes in, it gets a decent workout for the duration. In all, about what you’d expect for acid techno of any year. The B-Side, Rockin, starts off with strong, energetic beats (though not as strong and energetic as Dig It), an occasional vocal sample popping up in the mix (though more frequently than Dig It). Once the TB-303 comes in, it gets a decent workout for the duration (though not as much of a workout as in Dig It). In all, about what you’d expect for acid techno of any year.

So, um... yeah. Nothing’s changed for that scene at all.

And that’s perfectly fine. The London acid techno crew has always been singular in their manifesto, supplying ample hardware for kick-ass, in your face, off your nut parties. Go in, get mashed, dance until dawn, bleed your sweat glands dry. Then go home, rest, and wait for another time to indulge, most likely weeks or months away. It may be simple, but it does the job, and that’s all hard acid lovers want or need. These guys are still kicking out the jams like its 1995, and if this 12” is anything to go by, it’s a formula that won’t die anytime soon. Respect.

Progression - Different Day, Different Light (Original TC Review)

Black Hole Recordings: 2007

(2012 Update:
Comparing these tunes to the ending of Sopranos wasn't fair. Folks discuss that show to this day, but no one's talking about Progression anymore. Hah! Jokes aside, I am surprised this album seemingly tumbled off the face of the Earth shortly after its release, all but abandoned by Black Hole's marketing. Even the supposed 'big hit' Technophobia is forgotten. Me uploading this old review's probably the most exposure Different Day's gotten all this year. What the deal happened?

Well, the duo split up, with Wanrooy carrying on solo. Beyond that, who knows. At first, replaying this album reminded me of how much I enjoyed the aesthetics, giving me pause over my original assessment; however, I was also reminded of how frustratingly vacuous these tracks are. No wonder everyone ignored it.)


IN BRIEF: A step forward, a step back.

Daniel Wanrooy and Robin van de Wiel may have gained much of their initial momentum as Odysseye, but it was their Progression alias that drew the attention of the right person: Mr. Tijs Verwest himself. Having attained his blessing came greater exposure on his label and DJ mixes. After a half-a-dozen or so singles, the Big T suggested a full length. With the opportunity to indulge for the duration of an album, they spent a year in the studio making tracks. Now finished, the end result is Different Day, Different Light. Unfortunately, it hardly seems to have been worth the effort.

Yes, I know that isn’t exactly the most political thing to say but fact is the ideas are lacking on this release. There’s two discs worth of progressive trance for you to gorge on but you’ll be hard-pressed to recall much of it after it plays through, and this is a shame. Progression have lovely synths at their disposal: ethereal wisps, haunting chants, spacey sweeps - all winning ingredients where trance is concerned. Yet despite the exquisite production on display, their music is incredibly singular in execution. They utilize exactly one form of arrangement on every track - the tried and tested lead-up/breakdown/drop method of yore - with roughly two melodic ideas in each (exceptions to this rule will be delved upon, trust). The rhythms, for the most part, remain stuck in forward-drive, rarely deviating to bring us something funky or intuitive. And then there is the overall presentation of this release, of which I’ll get to in a moment.

Their album starts off fine, mind. Beneath The Surface is a pleasant groovy opener, with moody tech influences and vocals provided by Manon Polare that suit the atmosphere. Second track Echoes hits all the right buttons a follow-up in an album of this nature should, upping the energy in the rhythmic department and bringing more melodic elements than its predecessor. In fact, it’s bewildering as to how Different Day... lost its way after hearing this tune; Progression clearly display a talent for producing lovely prog trance that satisfies the body and soul.

Perhaps it’s because they made such a good tune with Echoes that the rest of the album fumbles, as it never quite reaches that lofty mark again (rarely a good sign when one of the best tracks is that early in a double-discer). More than that though, is much of Different Day... hints at wonderful prog trance possibilities that are, frankly, squandered with such bland arrangements. Go The Distance feels serviceable as a transitional track since it just came off a high point but for a long stretch in the middle of disc one, the feeling persists. And this is frustrating because these tracks sound like they could - they should - reach higher. They build anticipation that something better and bolder is about to be dropped, but abruptly end, moving onto the next track which does the same.

The Way Things Move is a prime example of pissing away potential. After the long trudge through “merely fine”, the duo show some promise of changing form with a beat that is tech-heavy, groovy, and fun. But just as soon as you get the sense we’re in store for something unique from the norm, they flush it right down the toilet by bringing in useless vocals to the forefront and an annoyingly hookless hook in the main breakdown (yes, the arrangement is still the same as everything else too).

CD1 ends amiably enough though. Their big hit, Technophobia, is here, and it’s a better-than-average prog trance excursion, although the white-noise synths are rather grating. The rest sounds like the duo were influenced by the stuff coming out of prog-psy camps, which isn’t a bad thing considering how ace that material’s been lately. Disc number two picks things up in the same vein, with Bell Shock being a blissy opener and Stranger slamming in with jagged tech rhythms. Could Progression show some actual progress now?

Sadly, no. CD2 proceeds much the same way most of CD1 does, with prog trance that is limited in scope and a sequence that remains flatlined throughout. Only two tracks sound fully formed, that being Hit & Run and Square Sky. As for the rest, there are flashes of good lurking about but the duo’s ideas never come into blossom. They’re sneezes that disappear into your sinuses. A peepshow that ends just before the clothes actually come off. A defensive re-assessment with an open look at the goal. An ending to an HBO series about a mob family.

Whatever you want to call it, ultimately Different Day, Different Light is unnecessarily stretched out. This album could have been better had a number of tracks been concisely fused into fewer rather than taking their ideas and crafting a standard prog trance tune around each of them. It still may not have been brilliant (they’d have to learn how to make a song in more than one arrangement for that) but at least it would have been solid.

I wanted to like this album. Really, I did. As mentioned, their synths sound great and the production quality is top grade. Unfortunately, most of Different Day, Different Light comes off as a bunch of tracks merely designed for the singles department - you can almost hear Wanrooy and Wiel planning how these cuts would fit into a DJ set rather than their album. And as transitional pieces for such DJs, much of this will work fine. However, like tech house albums of similar nature, this makes for a very bland listening experience at home.

Technical Itch - Diagnostics

Moving Shadow: 1999

Technical Itch was easily among the best names to emerge from the darkstep side of late 90s jungle, but his bizarre refusal to release a follow-up album to Diagnostics has left me wanting. Sure, tons and tons of singles, and perhaps Caro just feels comfortable sticking to that format. I see no reason why he should fear the long-player though, as he’s capable of knocking it out of the park.

Ah, I sense your Over-Hype Alarms beeping. Fair play, but you probably won’t find many hyping Diagnostics these days, if only for the fact it’s over a decade old now. Even then, this passed by with little notice. For whatever reason, Moving Shadow didn’t give the album much promotion, even though Dieselboy and other darkstep DJs pushed Caro’s tracks whenever they could. My enthusiasm for Diagnostics, however, stems not from a deluded belief that I own a buried treasure, but I'll argue this album is something of a rarity for jungle of the 90s.

Fact is, solid d’n’b albums from beginning to end were scarce that decade. Goldie’s Timeless managed to crossover, Roni Size/Reprazent’s New Forms provided some class, and Photek’s Modus Operandi was hailed as a game changer, yet beyond that? Certainly one could find the odd strong album within the niche areas of jungle, but for the most part that scene was a single’s game, the best long-players being compilations or DJ mixes. Even albums would come off as collections of singles.

Diagnostics does not. Whether by accident or design, Caro crafted a proper album, where each track builds upon what came before, all the while offering something different to keep your attention. The Technical Itch aesthetic – aggressive, abrasive, on edge, with a touch of future-shock – is the only linker between these cuts.

First few tracks display Caro's drum programming, which are fine, but when he drops the rhythmic intricacy and goes for the jugular is when Diagnostics truly takes off. Era's a great piece of darkstep, but Led will pummel you, so appropriately named because the bass in that one's heavy as fuck. Even though they both rely on the familiar 2-step Amen, Caro makes each iteration totally unique to his sound. Then he mixes things up with what might be daftly described as industrial broken-beat, and follows that one with a blistering acid workout that would have the London acid techno crew quivering. Oh, Reborn's still a jungle track – the bass drops are awesome! - but c'mon. Acid! Jungle! Together, and brilliant!

The album finishes strong with more darkstep tunes, though save Darkhalf, mostly winds things down while maintaining that twitchy edge. If there's any fault to be had with Diagnostics, it's that it makes no apologies for sticking to its niche, but that’s a complaint of nearly any jungle album, and few come away sounding as varied as this one does. Despite the limited ‘for darkstep fans’ scope, Technical Itch proves it can work in the long-player form.

Marco V - Combi:Nations:III

In Charge: 2007

Hi, Party Sykonee here. You might remember me as that counterpart of Critic Sykonee from a long ago review, Marco V’s Combi:Nations II. Now that he no longer feels shackled by ‘amateur journalistic integrity’ while blogging, we’ve pretty much become the same dude. Hell, even my grammar’s no longer questionable, isn’t that right, Critic Sykonee?

Critic Sykonee: “You know it, P’.”

Ah, some of you might have noticed I never re-uploaded that Marco V review here, even though it fell within my alphabetical guideline. Truth is, I no longer have that mix, as it was handed to me on a CD-RW I re-used for my next review. I do recall liking it, and figured should I stumble upon it cheap, I’d pick up a copy. Well hell, I didn’t find one, but here’s the follow-up, Combi:Nations III. Less than a fiver? Perfect excuse to do the schizophrenic gimmick again. Maybe the CDs will be good too!

And the first disc, titled Before, is good. It’s electro house, but it’s fun, funky, and rowdy in all the right places. Pure Main Room At Midnight indulgence. Heck, Critic Sykonee would even like this nowadays. Have we really merged that much in the five years since this was released? Hey, 2007 Sykonee, what would you say about this?

2007 Sykonee: “Trance sucks. Faux-electro is garbage. Minimal’s nonsense. Samim’s Heater’s a disgrace. Only good music now is Ultimae, which I just discovered, and twisted forest psy. Jungle’s still cool too.”

Wow, 2007 Sykonee was a twat. Fortunately, he’s stuck in the past, so forget what he has to say. Maybe even poke fun at some of his reviews whenever I upload them! (Critic Sykonee: “They weren’t all bad…”)

Back to Combi:Nations III. It seems after his dabbling on the previous edition of this series, Marco V found a proper groove with electro house, as all the tunes he uses maintains the peak hour bedlam with a few solid anthems thrown in here and there. One can never go wrong with Josh Wink’s Higher State Of Consciousness - yes, even in a remixed form - and Sander van Doorn’s last great track, Riff, is also present. Overall, the Before disc showcases all the ways electro house got it right.

However, what I was really looking forward to was the second disc, After, as that was a surprising highlight of Combi:Nations II. What kick-ass techno gems would Marco V unleash this-

Huh? That Trentemøller remix of Les Djinns is the lead-off? Okay… I guess that was a popular tune but… Oh, fuck me. Robbie Rivera’s here too? That guy’s been shit forever and… God, this mix is horrible. Track after track of plod-tech-hiss-dribble, arranged with no structure at all. And what’s with that rip-off of Don’t You Want Me? Marco, you totally lost the plot on this one. I never thought I’d say this, but compared to the music on After, the farty electro disc is brilliant. Isn’t that right, 2007 Sykonee?

2007 Sykonee: “You know it, P’.”

Ornament - Bleu

Cyan Music: 2004

Yep, it's been another round of used CD buying for yours truly, though I went about it in a different manner this time. I feel stupid for not realizing this before, but you can browse through a third-party store's inventory at Amazon like you're flipping through racks in a shop. There's a danger, however, in that the temptation for blind purchases increases exponentially. Well, it does for me anyway. I'm like a moth to a flame whenever I see a cover with interesting artwork. So long as I have a vague idea of what kind of music's within, I'll drop a few dollars for a gamble.

A quick check of Ornament’s Bleu at Discogs provided me with all the info I needed, the Recommendations list suggesting the likes of Shpongle, Ott, and assorted Ultimae releases. I’m sold. Wait a couple weeks, and voila, let’s see if this turned out alright.

Elgarhythms, the opening track, seems promising. Laid back vibe, dubby sounds ...almost Balearic in tone, which is odd considering the winter wonderland on the cover. As the song progresses, I’m starting to worry. There isn’t anything about it that strikes me as bad, yet if feels like we’re treading paths well worn by the likes of Bill Laswell, and rather substandard at that. Oh dear, might this be one of those albums, filled with meandering dub jams that, while never awful, comes away as pointless diddling only stoners can vibe on? Nah. The second track, Hypernicus, allays such worries, with soft rhythms and droning glacial pads. It does takes a few more cuts before returning to that style though, so be wary if you’re not a fan of the former.

Yeah, I was a little worried at first, but Ornament - comprised of a pair of studio guys from Australia, apparently - do keep things respectable with their dub jams; titular Bleu in particular tickles all the right dub-pleasure receptors in my noggin.

Their exploration of expansive Arctic (or Antarctic, I guess) soundscapes is where they find their stride. Plenty of sounds and samples they use could have come off as corny or cliché in lesser hands - talk of ‘eskimos’ in To Love Is To Laugh, or the use of woodwinds, voice pads, and ethnic chants in Yehuvaroom (by the way, are these tracks supposed to be lower-case titled?). Ornament never tumbles over that edge though, keeping things classy and restrained, their music drawing you in and easing you along their motif. The closing piece, ambeyond, is a perfect capper, desolate ambient drone that feels like you’re standing on frozen ice sheets in polar night, brisk wind biting into your iced-over skin. Are we sure these guys aren’t Scandanavian?

So in all, bleu turned out to be a sound blind purchase (okay, with a minor peek). I’m hesitant to say ‘pleasant surprise’ because I had some idea of what to expect (snow covered cover... winter themed music?). Check it out if you stumble upon it.

Felix Da Housecat - Devin Dazzle & The Neon Fever

Emperor Norton: 2004

Felix da Housecat had to have felt some pressure when it came time to follow up his ridiculously successful Kittenz And Thee Glitz. What was no more than a fun ode to music and style decidedly retro turned into a phenomenon, and Felix found himself a fashionable tastemaker, a figurehead of electroclash, and a DJ-slash-remixer in demand. That scene was short-lived though, burning itself out on ironic kitsch in but a few short years. He had to push forward to stay relevant, but how does one accomplish such when your whole (re)claim to fame's based around something purposely dated?

He managed it though, not by reinventing the game as before, but jumping on a few trends that were gaining steam in the year of 2004. Disco punk makes its presence felt, especially so courtesy of What She Wants (with James Murphy on vocals no less!). There’s celebrity navel-gazing/bashing in the form of Everyone Is Someone In L.A., some kinky grrl-power pandering with Short Skirts, Hunting Season, and my god is this ever turning into a boring review.

Bleh, I don’t know why either. I like this album. It’s fun and though lacking any of the insta-classics that were on Kittenz, I’d call Neon Fever a better overall experience. For one thing, no damn phone call or interview interludes; just song after song celebrating this weird, gaudy late-70s/early-80s notion of high times on the Sunset Boulevard. A lot of people gave approving nods to it, and Watching Cars Go By somehow became a crossover hit few DJs felt ashamed to play. Sasha F’n... um, Sasha used it on Involver! What the deals, eh?

Yet, something about it feels off eight years later. No doubt there was a great amount of hype leading to Neon Fever, and Felix had turned into such a charming success story that folks from all parties were eager to see him maintain that momentum. We enjoyed this album because we wanted to, and whatever faults there happened to be were easily dismissed. Unfortunately, forgettable subsequent albums had everyone questioning that former optimism. Where once there was celebration in dusting off classic bits of italo disco, there instead came scoffing at a lack of originality. Innovative trend setter? Bah, more like lucky guy at the right time with the right people in the studio.

So therein lays the problem above. A regular review of Neon Fever at this late stage will either be apologetically analytical, or ridiculously disparaging - here, with me actually liking the damned thing, probably the former. Felix da Housecat simply has gathered far too much critical baggage in the years following it to treat anything within a vacuum anymore. Kittenz is still regarded as a classic, for good or ill depending on your stance over trashy electro house music. Neon Fever, however, is something only fans of that scene will enjoy, where ‘the larger picture’ doesn’t matter. It seemed more important at one point, but like so much celebrity fascination, you now wonder why.