Eeeeh er HANN að koma hingað og spila?


Það er svo freakin' flott að það hálfa væri bara yfirfullt. Gaurinn er snillingur! Allt sem ég hef heyrt með honum er bara snilld. I Know Elektrikboy LPinn, Clashbackk undir nafninu Sharkimaxx og In The Dark We Live undir nafninu Aphrohead. Og líka Kittens and Thee Glitz. Hann er sá pródúser á danstónlist sem ég hef í hvað mestum hávegum.


Hérna eru enn meiri upplýsingar:

“We weren´t trying to be glamorous,” says Felix da Housecat over the phone from his home in Chicago, just a slight hint of denial in his voice as he explains the inspiration for his latest record, Kittenz and Thee Glitz (Emperor Norton). “We were making fun of the glam life in a cheeky, cool kinda way - if that makes any sense!”

Actually, it does. After all, Felix's trajectory from a teenage house DJ to one of America´s leading electro-punk exports has him rooted so deep in the trenches of nightclub fabulosity, one imagines humor is the only way he could have made it this far with his creativity still intact.

The story started in 1986 with a fifteen-year-old Felix Stallings Jr. in a studio with one of Chicago's preeminent house DJs, DJ Pierre, finishing off his Phantasy Club classic “Phantasy Girl.” By the turn of the decade, however, Chicago's club scene was in shambles, so Felix and Pierre flew to England to hawk their wares. “I got my break in London in 1991,” Felix recalls. “I went to Guerilla Records and played my stuff to William Orbit and all those cats, and they paid me three thousand pounds for ´The Don.´”

At least six or seven lives have been lived since then, as our Cat set out dropping tracks under the monikers Aphrohead, Sharkimax, Wonderboy, Thee Maddkatt Courtship, 2 Black Ninja's (with K-Alexi) and Elektrikboy. Along the way, Felix was frequently sought after for his ground-breaking production and remixing skills. Working alongside Roy Davis Junior and DJ Pierre, he pioneered the “Wild Pitch” sound that utterly beguiled taste-makers like The Sound Factory's Junior Vasquez in New York. He released singles with a variety of labels, including Bush, Soma, PIAS, Strictly Rhythm, Nervous and DJax. He also started his own imprints - Thee Black Label, Radikal Fear and Clashbackk. And his remixing credits range from Garbage and The Pet Shop Boys to Giorgio Moroder, Diana Ross and Kylie Minogue. All in all, Felix has released six full-length albums and three mix albums.

It wasn't that long ago, when Felix's “Elektrikboy” alter ego caught the attention of Pete Tong and Phil Howells at London Records, that it looked as though our underground star was about to become a cross-over sensation. His single, “My Life Musik,” was a bona fide anthem all over England, the Elektrikboy full-length of the same name was voted one of Muzik´s top five CDs of 1999, and his profile was higher than ever. But internal changes at London left Felix disillusioned - so much so that when Howells left London to start again at the cool new UK dance imprint City Rockers and offered Felix the chance to join him, he did. “Most people probably would have stayed with the label and the loot,” he says now. “But for me, it was more important to know that my music would be in good hands.”

Enter Kittenz and Thee Glitz. A startling tour-de-force, and arguably the finest album of Felix's 16-year career, it's already a resounding hit with fans and critics alike in the UK With a slew of guest vocalists - where else are you going to find Junior Sanchez, Miss Kittin, Melistar and Harrison Crump on the same record? - and plenty of hooks, the production pops and crackles with a charm not heard on these shores for a long, long time. At the center of this drama sits a man from Chicago. Enter Felix stage left.

“I was on tour in the summer of 2000 promoting ´Elektrikboy,´ and I´d been booked to play in Geneva, Switzerland,” begins Felix, his widescreen grin firmly intact as he recalls his first liason with the alluring Miss Kittin. ¨When I got there, I saw that Miss Kittin was DJing at the same festival and wanted to meet her. I´d heard this track ´Frank Sinatra´ that she´d made with this guy called The Hacker, and it was my FAVORITE song.“

The scene cuts to a mess hall several hours later. ”This guy Dave The Hustler takes me over to see Caroline - I didn´t know she was Miss Kittin!- and it turns out she was a fan of my Madkatt Courtshipp material. Dave had a studio, so we went in the next day and cut ‘Madame Hollywood.´ That song took three hours to mix and record. They had one computer and one keyboard, so I´m like, OK, I´m back to my roots here! I walked to the keyboard, played a bassline off the top of my head and Kittin brought an old Moog along. She sung it in the first take.“

A resident of France and Switzerland, Miss Kittin is, as her roots might suggest, simultaneously sweet and shamelessly seductive. Which is just how she likes it. ”She was so shy, she freaked me out,“ shivers Felix. ”She held the mike like an innocent child, but at the same time she´s so hardcore!“ The second song they recorded was ”Silver Screen (Shower Scene),“ a track that’s equal parts Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. ”I think Kittin brought a very underground, industrial element to the vibe - an ´I don´t give a damn´ attitude,“ says Felix. ”She really made me go back to my roots, because I was heading towards a mainstream vibe and didn´t even know it. I learned a lot from her DJ style, too.“

It´s clear, then, that Kittenz is far from a solo project. With Felix as maestro, an array of electro acts entered the studio - some in Geneva, some in Chicago - to work with electro-punk´s answer to Doctor Dre. ”Melistar brings the edge,“ Felix explains. ”She´s young but she´s got fire, and she knows what she wants. I tell her what to do on the mike and she takes it to the next level, which is great considering this is her first studio album. She has a very wild and vivid imagination!“

New Jersey jock Junior Sanchez, who is more like a brother to Felix than a studio cohabitant, also appears on the track ”Control Freaq.“ ”Junior´s been supportive from day one,“ he notes. Another new name on the album is producer/vocalist Harrison Crump. ”I wanted to bring a soulful feel to the project so it wouldn't be overly glam, so I asked Harrison to join me on ´Pray For A Star,´“ our hero explains. The pair also co-wrote ”Runaway Dreamer,“ the album´s soul-burning closing cut. The final piece in the puzzle was engineer Dave The Hustler, who Felix says brought a great sound to the project. ”I needed another ear - and someone who wasn´t afraid to break studio rules. Dave was afraid at first, but I told him its OK to be in the red, meaning it's alright to distort sounds and arrangements!“

What, pray tell, does Felix credit outside his own circle of friends and admirers? ”You know what, I hardly listen to anyone else´s music! “ he laughs. ”I´m too busy making my own!¨ When pushed, he admits a penchant for Daft Punk and fellow eighties-tinged electroids Ladytron, who he recently remixed.

Given the strong European flavor on Kittenz and Thee Glitz, it´s little wonder that London loves Felix. In fact, it was just this past month - October 18th - when Felix da Housecat picked up the 2001 Muzik Magazine Album of the Year Award for Kittenz and Thee Glitz, beating out Air, the Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk and Outkast. Several hours after collecting the gong, the Cat´s back working the floor at Fabric, the crowd lapping up his trademark blend of quirky deadpan vocals and thumping Chicago beats.

“Was I shocked?” asks Felix rhetorically. “Definitely! Everyone was so tense, but as soon as they said ´Felix´ the crowd jumped on me! I called my wife in America and she was crying. It takes a lot to jolt me, you know - I´m normally quite chill - but it felt like something from Jerry Maguire! I went up there jumping like Cuba Gooding when he won his Oscar!”

Having covered so much ground already, it's hard to imagine what might be next for Felix da Housecat. “My next project is gonna be very Minneapolis,” he confides. “I'm working on a girl band called Glamorama with two singers and two talkers.” The project is still under wraps, but we can reveal that it involves a Parisian music journalist called Estelle. “I want the album to look like a fashion magazine,” he winks. “But it´s still punk electro.” In the meantime, Felix da Housecat better brace himself for the reception America is already giving to Kittenz and Thee Glitz.



ps: þetta er viðtal og umfjöllum um manninn í tilefni Kittens And Thee Glitz, en það er fínt infó þarna líka. En þetta er annars af http://www.emperornorton.com/mod/artistpage.php3?artist =felix.

Og hananú.

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mmm mmm mmmmmm!! gæti ekki hugsað mér betri plötusnúð en köttinn