Felix Da Housecat - He Was King

Genre dance Publisher Nettwerk External Links

Okay dance music, what’s going on?  After a six or seven year hibernation, the electroclash movement (if you could’ve ever called it a movement) has most certainly resurfaced, but this is getting out of control.  After a little interneting, Chicks on Speed is due for a fall release, Erol Alkan is touring Europe.. hell, even Mount Sims is back in the studio.  Perhaps the time is right, with day-glo indie electro being the flavour du jour in most dance circles and Santigold wearing gold boots on Letterman, the fashion-uber-alles manifesto seems to have found easy soil within which to plant.

So it comes to no surprise, seriously none whatsoever, that prolific progressive house/sometimes electroclash kingpin Felix Da Housecat has released a new LP, He Was King.  And for those unaware, a couple years ago, he was king, with the release of critical darlings Kittenz & Thee Glitz and Devon Dazzle & The Neon Fever.  This release was foretold, perhaps, by Felix’s last release, “GU034:  Felix Da Housecat, Milan,” a live disc where he played to distinctly different sets:  the first, a groovy, upbeat dance mix, and the second, a harder, buzzier rambunctious mix.  It is highly towards the latter on which He Was King operates.

Gritty is the name of the game on He Was King—it has some of the hardest riffs I’ve heard on any dance record so far this year, including the newer work of The Bloody Beetroots and Fukkk Offf.  Not to say that this record is electro, because it’s not.  What Felix maintains that other electronic artists are lacking right now is a sense of soul and accountability.  What I mean by that is that he realizes the ebb and flow of a record, that it can’t be all fun and it can’t be all throat-ripping—see LCD Soundsystem for similar adjective affixation.

There are deviations, but the set-up on the disc is that side A is fun, stupid dance, and it’s kind of hit-or-miss.  “Plastik Fantastik” is thrillingly vapid, more about dance clubs and chemical peels than dancing, and “We” sets the dial to “space disco,” where it stays for the majority.  On the other hand, “Kickdrum,” which features one of the sickest bass drums I’ve ever heard, is a build up towards nothing, and “Spank U Very Much,” is purile, but not fun like “Plastik Fantastik.”  Side B, on the other hand, is all winners, from the jazzy tongue-in-cheek suicide ballad “Do Not Try This At Home” to the navel-gazing, eyes-closed bounce of He Was King, the slow song that Ettiene de Crecy never wrote.

I don’t think this is entirely what Felix was getting at with the album, but this could totally be a concept album about who we perceive as “kings” of our modern age, and how Felix would interpret them sonically.  “We All Wanna Be Prince” is loaded with sexy 80s lipbiting and a driving synth lead; “LA Ravers” is crazy, youthful, and exhausting; “Spank U Very Much,” the catchphrase of Jim Carrey’s Ace Ventura, is silly the first time, but doesn’t hold up on repeat listens.  It’s an interesting idea, at the very least, and something cohesive that the album can stitch to.

Welcome back, electroclash.  With Felix churning out such solid work, I hope your stay is a little longer than three years this time.