From The Vault III

Another vault outing, another album I absolutely love from that scene dubbed Electroclash. This time it's Felix Da Housecat's Kittenz & Thee Glitz often regarded as the man's best album. It is at least his most consistent, and the beginning of Felix's movement away from his Chicago House roots. While Electroclash as a whole has a pretty bad rap in the music world, Kittenz & Thee Glitz has enough variety and genre blending that it's a solid album regardless.





One of the things I really love about the album is its running theme throughout which is basically "Fame is skeezy and not all what it's cracked up to be" which is really just an evolution of Miss Kittin's monotone musings about pop culture on her The Hacker's First Album. Though saying that I feel that this album's a bit more accessible than that because of it's House-y nature. Check this out!



Much like Daft Punk's legendary Discovery, Kittenz has a bunch of quality tracks right off the bat. Contender for both my favourite synth sounds of all time and one of my favourite tracks of all time: Madame Hollywood is the entire album in a nutshell, from the structure right down to Miss Kittin's appearance on the track, delivering her trademark brand of vocals once again. It's been covered/remixed by Tiga but for me, Kittin just nails it, and brings a contrast that I feel is missing on Tiga's cover.



Continuing the theme, probably the most famous track on here Silver Screen Shower Scene is a fantastic track all the way through, the beats crash down from the get go and just do not let up and prove a nice contrast to Kittin's contributions on the vocal side of things. Also Silver Screen Shower Scene has the honor of featuring one of the best breakdowns ever in my collection. And the part immediately afterwards (3:00 and on) is pretty boss as well.





What album is complete without it's very own downtempo interlude? Kittenz's is very short but is just as sweet, and reminds me just a little of Daft Punk's Nightvision from Discovery. It fits with the albums established atmosphere and theme and opens the door to some more genres for Felix to explore, more on that after this



Taking a bit of a break from the usual techno/house vibes that typically make up that electroclash sound, Felix branches out into a weird combo of house, trip hop and regular old hip hop. That may be a bad description in my part but deffo check it out, it's a nice break from the usual house and techno combo that makes up most of the album



There's still plenty of house to be had though, and Sequel 2 Sub is one of the best house tracks in my collection. The piano dances over the classic house beat as the bass rumbles in the background, and the breaks throughout are beautifully done. It may sound a bit dated, but what old house tracks don't? I mean it is 11 years old after all. Despite that pretty much everything about this screams quality.



Speaking of genre clashes, since electroclash itself is pretty much synthpop with newer equipment what happens when someone covers a synthpop song in the the electroclash style? Well, you get one of two results, one being Ladytron's He Took Her To A Movie which lifts its main riff from Kraftwerk's The Model and the other is this: Felix's very own housed up version of Space's Magic Fly



And finally the token remix, I've heard a few of The Thin White Duke's remixes from around this era and they all have a similar structure: a bloody brilliant intro leading into a track that takes a while to go anywhere. These are clearly intended for the dancefloor, if that wasn't obvious already from the length. The track itself is great but the intro and outro absolutely steal the show here.



And that rounds off our latest venture into my old collection, and it'll probably be the last for a while. On the plus side I promise you that next time I post it won't be about electroclash. Or feature Miss Kittin on vocals. Maybe. We'll see. No Gurantees.

Everybody Wants To Be Hollywood,
- Claude Van Foxbat