De-Phazz Album: “Death by Chocolate [Germany Bonus Tracks]”

De-Phazz, headed as always by Pit Baumgartner, has created again a real masterpice in its music style. Completely new sound, which is refreshing, subtle and seductive, makes you feel like anew born...somewhere in the 60's.

Pat Appleton with her beautiful, sweet and mild voice paints the album with coziness and love. Karl Frierson adds again some tenderness and easy-flowing. Barbara Lahr is great with her mystic and profound voice. Otto Engelhardt and Ray George Randolph add amazing trombone and percussion pieces.

Almost all songs, presented on this album, deserve a highest attention, but nevertheless, there are some which get into your mind at the very first listening to it. "Something Special", "Nu Chic", "Death By Chocolate", "Online" and "Love's Labour's Lost" are the ones which are my favourite.

In general, I must admit that Pit Baumgartner has made smth unbelievable nowadays - he created completely new sounds without copying himself, with his "own" de-phazz's atmosphere, though, which you won't confuse with any existing music. A really must have for De-Phazz fans and for those, who like jazz with modern-influenced electro sound!

After their debut-album Godsdog I wondered if this German Jazz/lounge collective (8 people) could make something better. Well, I must say, they delivered a great jazzy album with 'death by chocolate'. It continues to deliver the same high quality. Most tracks are instant classics: 'Get together' Heartfixer, Something Special, Sabbatical, the french song Jeunesse Doree... well, the list should be really like 10 out of the 16 songs. The more you listen to it, the more you'll like it. It kinda recalls 50-ties jazz melted with influences like lounge and in two cases, reggae...

De-Phazz once again offers a plethora of super-sampled tracks fused with jazzy embellishments, sexy vocals (from both male and female), and beats-to-boot. "Death By Chocolate" is so hip and cosmo that it'll get played at every soiree that you host. If you're not into some serious lounge music this definitely ain't the CD for you!

Was introduced to De-Phazz with their song, "Jim The Jinn" (Jinn is Arabic for Genie), on the 2002 soundtrack for the Jonathan Demme film "The Truth About Charlie." This is one of the best songs ever written and lead me to this swinging disc full of big-band, jazzy tunes with both male and female crooners. This is sophisticated stuff to be sure, but spiced with literate lyricism, spoken-word samples, and electronic flourishes. Retro-chic never sounded better. These German scenesters, like their fellow acid-house, down-tempo Deutschlanders, Mo' Horizons, never cease to amaze me!

By the way, "The Truth About Charlie" soundtrack had a sticker on it that boasted it as "the greatest global music album of the 21st century" when it came out in 2002. For once, that is not an exageration. I went on to purchase the entire oeuvres of Germans De-Phazz (their 2012 release,

, is their tenth and BEST since their third, Death By Chocolate), Pakistani Brits, Asian Dub Foundation (their twelfth is 2011's

), Caucasian Londoners, Transglobal Underground (their ninth is 2011's

), Mexican Canadian, Lhasa (whose third and last cd was 2009's

, released only a few months before her death on New Year's Day, 2010), French Algerian, Rachid Taha (whose 2010 release,

, was his ninth) and Swiss, Argentine and French Parisians, the Gotan Project (who guest-musicianed on 2012's Dancing With the Stars, promoting their third release,

). I bought the full cds of several other artists represented, including The Feelies, Charles Aznavour, Sparklehorse and Jean Marc Miro. If you're counting, this one soundtrack compilation is responisble for 75% of my music collection!!!

I FIRST HEARD OF DE PHAZZ THROUGH YOUTUBE IN THE SUMMER OF 2010. FROM THE MOMENT I HEARD THEM, I WAS HYPNOTIZED, MESMERIZED, AND "DE-PHAZZIZED"! THE PERFECT BLEND OF EASY JAZZ,CLEVER LYRICS,SMOOTH GROOVES AND A TOUCH OF SENSUOUS BRAIN TEASE. POUR THE MARTINI...IT'S TIME FOR MORE DE-PHAZZ.