Du Bist Die Stadt

I found this one yesterday. I guess it says "You are the City". By the cool layout and the very informative booklet (if you read German, which I can't), I gather it's a compilation by artists participating in a festival that took place in 2002 throughout the city of Koeln/Cologne. There is also a bicycle-bar maskot, but after that it's getting confusing... I hope it was paid by the municipality (ah, those northeners ...).
It was released by the (incredibly named) Scheinselbstaending label, which in my opinion is one of the best pop oriented electronic labels, a evolutionary branch parallel in a way with Ladomat, more towards the electro-pop direction. There were definitely some strong connections with Kompakt from the beginning, while a (very) similar style was more or less adopted by Kompakt Pop later. The label boasts an amazing release by Luomo (with Raz Ohara vocals), some Pet Shop Boys-sounding 12'' by Baxendale of later 'I Built This City' fame, the first release of Drei Farben House and some stuff by Lothar Hempel aka Blitz (Auftrieb) aka Magnet (Kompakt) aka Phong Sui (Kompakt Pop) and once collaborator of Joerg Burger. Main feature artist is Brant, possibly the owner (any help here?).
The CD more or less clarifies its intentions from track one, embedding Burger-like pop techno sensitivities with Salz-like sweet fat minimal. Contains some typical mellow techno by Reinhard Voigt, M. Schaffhaeuser and the unexpectedly good Bum Khun Cha Youth (?), along some vocal pop bastardized with tech-house quality tracks by more or less unknown (at least to me) artists. Also an atypical '80s Brinkmann german vocal track and a Cologne-pop cover of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me' by Brant & Mr. Roper, which two years later got a remix by Ada and went on and slipped into the marvelous 2007 'Please Please Please' mix by master Tobias Thomas [Kompakt CD 58]. Who had written a small introductory text on the folder of this CD back in 2003, to come back full round.
It's unexpectedly and refreshingly good. If more pop was like this, I wouldn't need much else.

VA - 2003, Du Bist Die Stadt
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.

A beautiful but outdated site of Scheinselbstaending can be found here.

Last but not least: check THIS.

1 comment:

exilestreet said...

Re:Bum Khun Cha Youth, they were named in honour of a Korean soccer player who played in Germany and HerrB over @ Pathway To Unknown Worlds uses the same nickname...now you know LOL!
Regards/