De-Phazz Album: “Best of De-Phazz: Beyond Lounge”

If you like the retro-vocal melancholy, jazzy, insular-yet-panoramic, lush, smoky-lounge, orchestral, strange, ecstatic, DJ-scratchy, sublime, sampled and genre-bending compostions of Art of Noise, The Matthew Herbert Big Band, Enzso, Funki Porcini, Yello, Caleb's Cosmosis, Hugh Marsh, Future Sound of London, United Future Organization or Bowery Electric, then you will love this.

It gets 4/5 because honestly, you'll get more cafeteria-style gratification out of buying their individual CDs.

'NUFF SAID.

Even if it's a best of only 3 cd (Godsdog, Death by Choccolate, Detunhaiz Gravity) this is a great best of De-Phazz.

You will find some songs already founded in Costes series (No jive and Jazz music)and 13 others.

Totally 15 songs of jazz, nu, carribean, electronic, acid, and everything connected with the good music. The final resault it's a fun and clever CD. In this moment it's my favorite ones, infact you can listen everywhere..cars, bars, rooms, and you will find that it's always in the right atmosphera. Music that never boring you and that helps to smile and dance!If you like this CD i suggest to buy also LLorca : the Novel sound...something more jazz but no so far away from De-Phazz!

I was as surprised as the next person to find out this is a German ensemble, combining jazz and house music into an infectious set of rhythms, where Pat Appleton lends her far-ranging voice to the carefully orchestrated music, that draws on everything from late 50's jazz to James Bond. She can make herself sound like Billie Holiday on Cut the Jazz to Anita O'Day on Something Special. A great alternative to the usual House music, combining a much fuller range of music into the ultimate "Lounge" experience.

De-Phazz's musical gems pop up in various compilations and are so distinctive and infectious that the inevitable question is "Where do I find more of this?" Problem is that, as their individual albums show, these guys are out on the erratic edge, mixing up latin, electronica/dance and jazz/hip-hop into something that's at best addictively super-cool and at worst completely over the top. But the good news is that this "Best of..." collection includes most of what you're probably looking for including the wonderfully funky "Hero Dead & Gone", "Godsdog" & "Heartfixer", the bizarrely brilliant Latin pastiches "The Mambo Craze" & "Something Special" and the quite stunning "Jazz Music", plus a great deal more. And the bad news? It's missing two of their very best tracks - "Jim the Jinn" (found on their "Death by Chocolate" CD) and "Riddim Wize" (from their "Plastic Love Memory" compilation of lost tracks & alternative takes) - which if you like what's here you'll also want. Almost the perfect answer... but unfortunately life ain't that easy.