In praise of Miss Kittin's 'Electroclash' Muzik mix-cd

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Scintillating mix of nu-electro, tech-house, Kompakt sounds (mixing Pan Sonic into Golden Boy..genius) Kittin singing over the top, Dot Allison, Michael Mayer, ending with Thomas Brinkman's monolithic Klicks.

Worth the embarrassment of having to buy Muzik to get a copy.

― stevo, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that's a cool cover CD.

― phil, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

But...but...she's a woman...and not from Detroit!!! ;)

I hope the local Waterstone's still carries a copy.

― Omar, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah it's a gd freebie - esp. sweet to hear 'Drugs Work' by System 01 again after all these years - but on this showing, 'electroclash' just seems to = any old electronic music the DJ happens to like from the last ten years or so, mixed/mashed up. Which is cool and all - I hate those DJs who only mix one type of techno or whatever all night long. But Brinkmann, Panasonic, even Ultra-Red, don't really seem to have that much in common musically, intellectually, or aesthetically, either w/ each other, OR w/ the likes of FischerSpooner (thank god), other than the fact that none of them use guitars.

So I guess I'm saying the music's gd, the 'movement' seems to be more scene-making, fad-chasing nonsense.

― Andrew L, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

the genre is one of the most amorphous genres going. its seems to be whatever you want it to be. i mean, jeff mills vs casey spooner!

― gareth, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Worth it for the Michael Mayer alone. I can't remember the last time I bought a magazine because of the cover-mounted CD. I mean, prior to this one.

― scott pl., Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

it seems to mean what you want it to mean

Surely house and breaks and techno all fit this bill too, particularly the first two.

― Ronan, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, but they have evolved, and have sub-genres, and diasporas if you like, theres been gradual mutating in all directions, from a centre, whereas electroclash just seems to have appeared, in a way, and has reached in many different directions almost instantaneously - ie its amorphousness seems partly down to the fact that its not 'agreed' what it is yet.

― gareth, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Note the generall convergence between electroclash and microhouse as well - not just Michael Mayer on Miss Kittin's cd, but Sascha Funke covering "When Will I Be Famous" and Matthias Schaffhauser covering "Hey Little Girl" and "Take Me To Your Heart, Data80's "Love Was Made For Two", the D.A.F./ Depeche Mode stylings of Closer Musik, the Blue Nile/Tears For Fears (via Piano Magic) elements of Coloma, Martini Bros' "Flash", Hakan Lidbo making an electro album, the general electro/micro borderline treaded by labels like Italic, Forte, Festplatten... I think it's really healthy because it combines all the good stuff about electroclash (the enjoyable kitsch, the pop- friendliness, the artful reserve, the simple grooviness) with all the good stuff about microhouse (ear-teasing details, strong emotionalism, lasciviousness, the complex grooviness), thereby nicely saving the former from its tendency to wander into cul-de- sacs and offering the latter a chance to break out.

― Tim, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

We could just as easily come up with a term like "guitarclatter" and go back and forth all the livelong day about who is and who isn't guitarclatter (Radio 4? Shellac? Gang of Four? Sonic Youth? Fugazi? Captain Beefheart? Jimi Hendrix?). Just about any band that uses synths and some amount of melody these days has been lumped in with electroclash at some point -- the term basically says, "We are not a guitar band." And since these bands don't feature guitars prominently, anything from early Chicago house to synth pop to bangin' techno can also fit somehow.

― Andy K, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

everything except poor old add n to x eh?

― gareth, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Funny you should say that -- saw the first LA area ad for a self-described 'electroclash' club last week, with a listing of the type of bands they play, and Add N to (X) was in there with the Depeche and Fischerspooner mentions.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I bought this used, actually, and only realized later that it came paired with the magazine. Which is alright, since the $8 I paid for the CD is the same as I would have paid for Muzik, with taxes added. It doesn't look much like a typical magazine mix, so I suppose if you could steal the CD then you'd make yourself a nice profit, but otherwise you're just recouping yourself what you paid originally.

I'm liking this mix very much. It's definitely the best thing to toss the electroclash net wide so you can pull in what may come.

― Dare, Monday, 12 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Couldn't... make it... past... M Mayer track... due to... Miss... Kittin's... god... damn... murmuring... over... that exact... track... much worse than... drunken person sitting next to you in car... belting out... bungled rendition of... Dust... in... the... Wind...

― Andy K (Andy K), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 00:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Boohoo...I thought that was pretty inspired, getting mister Mayer out of his love-lorn trance and actually getting something of an anwser by a not so interested object of desire. :)[Miss Kittin smoking at the bar] "yeah yeah luvv iz strunger zhen pride, now go away you german sado."

It's a lovely mix, the only thing that throws me is that Felix Da Housecat remix of Substance, I mean every time I expect the appearance of that Bolz Bolz bassline (as mixed on Excursions)

and: "smoking on a cigarette/listening to this carrr-cassette" is becoming my favorite one-liner very fast. :)

― Omar, Wednesday, 28 August 2002 05:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Terrific, I thought. Where is Anna, who is a big Miss Kittin fan?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

i found this yesterday and i really like it. highlights: the carbonated synth spray and gurgling acid pools of "fool's gold" (or was it "love is stronger than pride"?), knowing that the silverware-eating lawnmower of pan sonic's "teurastamo" foreshadows "rippin' kittin", the clanging steel girder percussion of "a certain kind", eventually revealed as the scaffolding for ellen allien's contemplative anthem "stadtkind", the 8-bit synth string melancholy (my favourite kind) of the zoot woman remix, hell, i even like the sound of the berlin wall untoppling itself in slow motion at the end.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

or was it "love is stronger than pride"?

There is definitely something wrong with either the track listing on the inlay card or the track counter on the CD around this point in the mix, I think.

Yeah, it's a great mix, as I said on one of the electroclash threads.

― Jeff W (Jeff W), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

I missed that particular copy of Muzik by one day, but finally found a copy of the mix CD in my local charity shop for £3 over the weekend.

It is a curious listen in 2005. Already 2001/2 seems as distant and remote, musically, as Nightclubbing or Computer World. Thus this is a lost historical document of something which never got around to happening. Which is a shame because the music and mix are magnificent, particularly the "Drugs Work"/"Fools Gold" and "Substance"/"Energieknese" segues (the latter especially, with its drowned contrabass echoes of the "Tainted Love" leitmotif). And Kittin's murmuring talkover throughout works for me precisely because it divorces the mix from being a standard, "professionally" assembled job - it's as though she's semi-awake/semi-conscious in bed, one ear idly nestled against the radio, commenting, cajoling and finally accepting, even of impermanence ("Berlin Is Burning"). "Frank Sinatra" never sounded deader, "Rippin Kittin" rarely more suicidal. The ellipse from the already antique-sounding "Living In A Magazine" to the cold rationalism of "Klicks" is quite deeply affecting, as if this is all to which we ultimately devolve - elements, atoms, nothingness.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

the mix is a lot better than her album proper thats for sure, i have the mix within reach al the time for those electro impulses, whereas i-com is filed away in the archive.

i keep hoping that that the muzik/DFA mix will turn up in a local charity shop ..

so far no luck .. but i will keep on looking ..

― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 10:53 (nineteen years ago)

You and me both. The four that I have - Alkan, Cassius, MJ Cole, Chicken Lips/Switchkraft - are all masterfully executed. More often than not, they also leave the correct amount of track time in.

― BARMS, Tuesday, 2 August 2005 12:00 (nineteen years ago)

ah muzik.

nothing's come along to even hope to come close to replacing it.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 2 August 2005 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

the tracks are all short cos of licensing I thought!

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 12:56 (nineteen years ago)

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