including...
1. LOSOUL feat. ThisTime - the Number
2. ROMAN IV - Neues Testament
3. MYMY - Day for Night
4. SIMON BAKER - Plastik (Todd Terje‘s Turkatech Remix)
5. X-DISTRICT - Color Correction
6. HOLGER ZILSKE - the Bees
7. GOLDFISH & DER DULZ - Love me Fender
8. REWORK - Love love love Yeah (Chloé Remix)
9. PROSUMER - the Craze
10. COMMON FACTOR - the Storm
FAMOUS WHEN DEAD VI package comes as a double CD for the price of one, including a bonus CD, lovingly mixed by labelowner HEIKO
M/S/O.
It‘s the claps, cretin! It‘s the dub, dumbass! It‘s the bass, blockhead!
The echo chamber, the Disco dancefloor and the bass-bin are once again
the central, magic spaces in which the little big label from Frankfurt
culitvates its universal, totally modern and always timeless House
sound for now bloody 15 years.
Within the endless interplay of tradition and modernity the Playhouse
team has again impeccably balanced the mix of this new compilation: on
one hand the parameters of House music, set in stone since the
Neolithic Age, and without whom nothing really works: the never too
rapid pace, unremitting nevertheless, the use of minimal means for
maximum impact, the claps with their humane amiability, the basslines
with their viciousness - at times at least.
On the other hand how this is interpreted, how this is shaped into
sound, is so totally 2008: crisp and transparent in the high end, with
a pounding punch and warm body in the low end. This is the frame for a
wide ranging palette of conditions that the Playhouse tracks cause on
the dancefloor. It is best experienced on an excellent sound system
like the label‘s homebase Robert Johnson in Offenbach, or at Panorama
Bar in Berlin, where Playhouse has a monthly residency. In sparse,
intense rooms like these the assembled and highly reactive elements
flourish to their fullest.
The claps, or to be more precise: the Disco claps are already
irrestistibly driving the first two titles of the new
Playhouse-Compilation „FAMOUS WHEN DEAD 6“. Both these are from
Playhouse acts of the first hour:
LOSOUL and ROMAN „IV“ FLÜGEL which provides continuity - personally but also esthetically.
LOSOUL‘S „THE NUMBER“ is a muscular piece with demonic voice
announcements. FLÜGELS „NEUES TESTAMENT“ is a graceful dance on the
thin line between Minimal House and Disco - REALLY fresh!
On MYMY‘S track it‘s less the claps but rather the dark Dub and its
pervading melancholy dominating the late hours in the leading House
clubs right now. MYMY, one of the most important Playhouse discoveries
of the last years, morph hihats to white noise, dryness to wet reverb,
these being just two of their tranceoid tricks the Berlin collective
come up with just like that.
TODD TERJE is doing something compeletly different: with significantly
reduced tempo, bongos and tonewoods from exotic trees he is
transforming SIMON BAKER‘S „PLASTIC“ into an eleven minute New Age
Boogie excursion, fortunately dispensing with any of the cheesyness
that is only too common with the old Cosmic originals. Instead it‘s the
broad presence of the bass and the Balearic elements that already made
this track a favourite on both Disco AND Techno floors. The Dub
influence here is less like Augustus Pablo, rather cosmic like
Krautrock. TERJE is his own hippie collectve with the advantage that
all players are on par - Krautrock has never sounded more tight.
X-DISTRICT is a project from Detroit, led by JIMMY EDGAR. They deliver
a vocal Electro track, that‘s again dominated by powerful resounding
claps, here clapped by an inhumane machine which oddly provides a
rather romantic athmosphere. Sun-lit chords are in appealing contrast
to the toneless glacial voice of an android sounding LAURA CLARKE. With
its duration of just over two and a half minutes the song has the
format of a Punk Rock single.
It couldn‘t get further away from Punk Rock as HOLGER ZILSKE from
Berlin. He is a sound engineer talent from the label‘s own pedigree.
His compositions are always finely carved, the sophisticated sound
design never an end in itself but always in the service of maximum
psychedelic vehemency and impact. This is solidly based on a
proficiently grooving percussive and organic rhythm - it‘s a pleasure
to be blown away by „THE BEES“.
GOLDFISH & DER DULZ, always present on Playhouse intermittently,
deliver a piece of Rocket Techno with their „LOVE ME FENDER“, making no
detour whatsoever. Playing it at some open air festivals this summer I
could witness with my own eyes how this track fetched the people, took
them away and finished them off , no matter what time of day or night.
REWORK‘S „LOVE LOVE LOVE YEAH“ is remixed here by CHLOE, a timeless and
existencialist Berlin cinemascopic darkness House track with dubby
triplet bassnotes and icy vocals.
PROSUMER, another good friend of the label contrasts this with a nearly
desperate warmness in the lyrics of „THE CRAZE“, though this being just
as big a club tune, at the same time rescuing cave and gobbling belly
of the whale. Being three years old this is the oldest track of the
compilation and proves that Playhouse dealt with the now acute topics
quite some while, they anticipated and shaped them.
The second oldest track „STORM“ by COMMON FACTOR provides the final
notes with slap bass and shows again that Discofunk and Technohouse are
close siblings, that aren‘t necessarily dependent on each other but by
co-operating are truly flowering.
„FAMOUS WHEN DEAD 6“ is a comprehensive trip, a manifesto for deep
House Music, a declaration of love of the night with all its passions
and hazards, it‘s glory and it‘s smut.
This package comes as a double CD for the price of one, including a bonus CD, lovingly mixed by labelowner HEIKO
M/S/O and containing partially alternate tracks by the artists of this compilation.
Hans Nieswandt, Sept. 2008