Felix Da Housecat: Kittenz And Thee Glitz

Like Green Velvet, the mohawked punk poet of dance music, Felix Da Housecat emerged from the macabre outer reaches of the Chicago acid-house scene. After learning the trade from DJ Pierre in the late '80s, Felix went on to cut a peculiar figure in underground circles, operating with an outsized personality—the behavioral equivalent of acid-house's alien synth-squiggles and shuddering bass kicks. On Kittenz And Thee Glitz, Felix pours a similar dose of weirdness onto the control board of the current electro renaissance, twisting elemental '80s sounds into tales of haunted glam fantasy. Like loosely related albums by Adult., Peaches, Chicks On Speed, and a number of artists recording on little labels from New York to Germany, Kittenz is aggressively stripped down to dance music's man-machine core. The spectral winds and pre-post-historic beats could fit into Vangelis' Blade Runner score, but Felix rescues his futuristic relics by matching them to ghostly story-songs. Thanks to vocals by Miss Kittin, Melistar, Electrikboy, and Harrison Crump, the album's ostensible dance tracks find an eerie narrative ground, wavering between mercury-mouthed death whispers ("Walk With Me") and the monochromatic, manic-depressive drawl of glamour casualties popping pills in the Hollywood Hills ("Madame Hollywood," "Silver Screen Shower Scene"). Kittenz features a few too many barely sketched ideas, but its rough-hewn surface ultimately tightens the psychic squeeze. And when the album closes with the gorgeous deep-house hymn "Runaway Dreamer," it's clear that Felix's blurry songscape is dictated more by teary-eyed sadness than lack of vision.