"It doesn't matter that you haven't seen this man's name on a ton of club flyers, nor does it matter that he is not an international DJ star, "Harry The Bastard" is a champion at what he does and he is ultimately respected for it." - Note on Statra's Web site.

Harry got my respect as well, as soon as I popped this jewel into my CD player and started listening to this ultimate package for the educated deep house connoisseur. I have to admit, I had not heard the name "Harry The Bastard" either, but now I know who's behind my record collection. Harry is one of America's lead import buyers for electronic music which, as we all know, includes our mother house music. And we all have to face reality: Europe's house scene is so much better than the American, and we US-bound people here in the States sometimes just don't have the fortune to get all great records which come from across the Atlantic. But luckily for us, there is a person named Harry who reminds us of all the great tunes we never had a chance to listen to with this beautiful CD called "Club H," which is a pseudo for the biweekly listening sessions he's hosting for his soul and music mates in his own flat. Believe me, I would give my car to witness one of these sessions!

"Club H" features the best of the best in recent deep underground house music, and you have to fasten your seat belts to survive the massive vibes attacks which will hit you from the first to the last track. Every track is a jewel, from the opener "Deep In It" by France's own St. Germain to the last track, a deep tech-house song called "Last Stop" by YMC. And in between you have tracks which left me speechless because of their indescribable beauty, like the too deep to be true "165 Drop" by Hot Lizard. You gotta hear this track! I consider myself a decent follower of the deep and soulful house scene, but I had never heard this song before. Other highlights are "Get It On" by Crazy Penis, one of Paper Recordings' outstanding house projects. For me, this song continues where House Of 909 left us in 1997, and a track which made me fly for 6 minutes - and cry. Of course, we also find one of the greatest deep house projects ever, Global Communication aka Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard, with "The Way The Deep" and their highly sophisticated interpretation of a deep soulful French house song. Global Communication are also featured with one of my deep house songs from last year, their remix to Azymuth's "Carnival," so you really get your money worth!

This CD gives you nothing but purest deep and soulful house bliss, which comes as a bonus wrapped in a flawless mix and makes it one of the greatest mix CDs ever. I'm sure this wicked piece of plastic will be officially married to my CD player until "Club H - Part 2" comes out - hopefully sooner than later.
MG

Right On Baby, this one is a funk monster from outa space, heading via the mothership to a sound system near you where it is guaranteed to bend metal and release the funk! Mark my words, the Frenchs have done it again, this time in form of Alex Gopher, once a member of cult band Air who is famous for dopest downtempo grooves. But Alex is not with Air any longer because he decided to pursue a more uptempo orientated career, mainly as a remixer and DJ. Anyhow, all the waiting is over and Alex hit me with his debut album... right below my waist line! Believe me, this is one hell of a great funk album, and I know what I'm talking about because back in the days I used to spin nothing but funk, from the Soul Searchers to L.A. Connection. The bass is back, and it is slapping like crazy - no matter how the weather is outside!

Attention funkateers, all you have to do to convince yourself is listening to the opener "Time," a killer track with one of the funkiest intros since the late 70's: "A Welcome To Station WEFUNK!" awaits you in form of a great Mr. Funkenstein imitation, and then Alex releases the groove, the bass, the vocals and the guitars. My roommate had to tie me to my seat because I was close to loose my mind when I first heard this tune. I mean, we have to face it: funk just doesn't sound the way it did back in the days. One major reason for this is that Nu-funk tracks, as I want to call recently recorded funk songs from now on, aren't 100% funk any longer, but more a mixture of different styles incl. hip-hop, house and others. And while adding more styles into the mix, most Nu-funk trax lost their main purpose which is to release the funk - so happened with recent albums even from funk legends like Bootsy Collins. But luckily for us, there's still the French underground connection and labels like Yellow, Versatile or Solid who honor the achievements of the mothership connection by releasing true Nu-funk records.

Of course, Alex' compositions on "You My Baby & I" are adaptations as well, some downtempo, some housy, some almost Air-ish, but they still have more funk than anything else. It is really impossible to point out certain highlights, but for me there are a couple of songs which deserve some extra lines. First of all, there's "Time" with some of the nicest vocals reminiscent of Jay Hem's luscious singing on Kojack's "Soul Full" (Nekko) from last year, followed by "Tryin'" on a delicious funk house sampling trip. Let's also not forget about "The Child," a bassiest midtempo funk number feat. some incredibly sampled Billie Holiday vocals. And if you've never really liked Electro funk, just put "With U" on and you will become a true believer. But the most amazing song is track number 9 entitled "Consolidated," a dark funky tech-house song. To all you tech-house fans, you can't live without this song! While I was listening to it, Ian O'Brien and Herbert entered my room and I forgot everything else I wanted to write...

One of the greatest Nu-funk records of all time! The only thing I don't like is that this record is only appr. 45 minutes long. But then, that's the length of almost every old school funk album, isn't it?
MG

Toko - the label where you have at least one person dancing, the nice little animal logo on the record that is. This is another jazz influenced single, and quite a good one. It has everything to get you moving, relaxing, driving, swimming, sleeping and all the other things we like. Now for the tracks:

A1 - long track to begin with. A beautiful composition, more groovy at the beginning, later more jazzy and difficult to follow. No problem, it will follow YOU. The rhythm comes always back, mostly combined with some space sounds.

B1 - Blow my horns. That's an intelligent mixture of jazz elements (i.e. the horn), computerized voices , a great rhythm and for part of the time a noise that makes you jump and look if your diamond needle is still in its right place. Let me assure you, dear reader, that everything is OK. This track reminds me a 'bit of Detroit, perhaps because it has deep love for disarrangement. Just the difference to the next on.

B2 - Eat my G-strings. Okay I have eaten it, and let me tell you, excellent cooking. This is the more quiet track of this 12" and this time you can find your rhythm smoothly. Jazz-influence this time as salt and pepper, giving the special touch. Strings of a guitar are the main ingredient's. Relaxing, driving in autumn, seeing the trees turn brown. Dessert-ware from the Mavenalli-Kitchen.

Bon Appetit!
Hubertus Müller

I remember a discussion I had with one of my best buddies about hip-hop just a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about the state of the art which brought us songs like "The Message," "Mass Appeal" or, more recently "Holla Holla, Dolla Dolla." Our result: Hip-Hop today is nothing but a dead carcass! Why? Because even the underground is rapping about money, dollars and cars, and Tribe doesn't exist any longer. This was not only my opinion, but also the opinion of my friend who once had one of the best underground hip-hop radio shows here in the States.

However, I have to admit that there are still exceptions, and one of them is definitely the latest album from The Wiseguys called "The Antidote," although it's not really hip-hop or anything else that would fit under only one umbrella. And they also rap about money, like on "The Grabbing Hand" featuring Joie Bunsen, Season and L.E.W. But as long as you criticize goin' the fast lane, I'm down with it! In fact, I really enjoyed listening to the entire album, because it is really good and dope as hell, and brings back a kind of roughness and sample magic I was missing for quite some time. No wonder that Giant Steps jumped on this one and released it in America. Most songs are brilliant instrumental hip-hop or trip-hop grooves (as I said it's hard to label it), spiced with all kinds of crazy funky samples, while big beats keep your head moving. Just listen to "We Be The Crew..." on which Touché, the man behind The Wiseguys, shows us that he's the better DJ Shadow. This song alone kept me pressing the repeat button, because there's some true magic working the sample knobs. Another wild song is "Face The Flames," that was inspired by Rachmaninoff and obviously has even one track from Mr. R sampled. The result is a wicked and wild trip-hop rollercoaster. Besides downtempo rhythms, Touché also shows that he's doing fine in the 120bpm or higher range, like on "Cowboy '78" and his uptempo version of a WWW song. Right, forget Will Smith, he's a nobody compared to The Wiseguys' version of this Western song. Of course, we also can't forget "Ooh La La," one of the hottest tunes in London right now, which strongly reminded me of songs from my beloved United Future Organization aka UFO.

No kidding, this album is down to the bone and one of nowadays' few good hip-hop records. If you have some love left for this music, take advantage of this particular antidote and inject it into your hypothalamus before hip-hop vanishes from the face of the earth.
MG

I was a 'bit disappointed with the late records from Glasgow Underground (GU), big names but unfortunately a little weak. Nevertheless, GU is a great label and with Mikael Deltas' "Blue Emotion" LP it has a new highlight. Mikael Deltas debut on GU is something between the great Daniel Ibbotson (GULP), Nujazz and Mateo & Matos' "New York Rhythms" (GULP). That seems to be quite a big difference, but it isn't really as Mikael takes just pieces from every style and creates his own way of down and midtempo house music. The LP is very pleasant to listen to and some tracks manage to settle into your ears for a long time. Try "With You" or "Blue E" to get a feeling of really deep house music. "Blue Orange" is a more pumping one and "Talkin" brings ethno-trance-house to your room. For more jazz and lowtempo, position your diamond needle to "Nostalgia" or "In Your Eyes." Voices appear in appr. half of the songs on this album. You see, this LP combines so much different tracks in a quiet and beautiful way that it is difficult to describe them all, so listen for yourself. It is just the right LP for autumn and winter. Mikael Delta comes from Greece and hasn't released too many house tracks so far. I will try and get some information about him for you, so stay tuned and look into this GU-highlight at your favorite record shop.
Hubertus Müller