Customer Reviews

Death By Chocolate

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album is my secret weapon at party's where
hip cool rhythmic vibes are the obsession of every
D.J. wanna-be. I play this one and heads turn
and the night becomes magic.

Please don't buy this because I want to be the one
that delivers that amazing song that everyone is
blown away and says "who's this"?

Being made aware of this stellar group by Hotel Costes #1
I bought one of their earlier albums and loved it. Years
later I wanted to catch up with them so I bought DBC and

couldn't get over the intensity of this album. Did I already
mention not to buy this and maybe perhaps buy another
repetitive drumbeat release by Thievery Corporation.
Please do not buy this album as it will open a window
into a futuristic world of sound only Yello has delved.
Stop now, this is your last warning.

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!

A fabulous album ... tres Fantastique ...

This album is wonderful ... Its lounge at its best ... Personal best is "Love labours Lost" Perfect for any occasion. I can listen to it day and night ... Great for parties and to wind down with your loved one, friends or just on your own. Cut the bread, serve the wine, get comfortable and unwind. the music makes you want to fly, makes you want to live, to be alive, to jump and dance ...

This is Lounge the way it should be. Even better than the Naked music collection (bare essentials, nude tempo. try it and you'll be hooked!

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...

As most other reviewers of this band point out, describing their sound is next to impossible and invariably fails to do it justice when one resorts to specific descriptors (i.e. downtempo, ultra-cool nu lounge jazz with a meta-post-modern sensibility). Suffice it to say that what De-Phazz achieves on this and all their albums is utter perfection. One finds oneself constantly leaning into the music, awestruck by the absolute "rightness" of every lick and every production device they use. Perhaps the best observation I can add to this thread is that, after over 10 years of listening to nothing but classical, I heard a version of Ella Fitzgerald's "Wait Until You See Him" on the radio. It was so stunningly beautiful I had to stop my car and just listen. Except it COULDN"T have been by Ella, the instrumental sounds and production could not possibly have been around when her voice sounded like that. It turns out that it was the De-Phazz remix of that tune on Verve Remixed Volume I. In trying to fugure out just what it was I had heard (I didn't know a De-Phazz from a Dead Kennedy 3 months ago) I stumbled on to literally hundreds of other incredible artists in the downtempo-nu-jazz-IDM-breaks-etc. genres and ended up buying over 500 CD's, entirely from the "Dance-Electronics section of my local music stores, this summer. But De-phazz is still in a class by itself. Even if you're an insufferable Jazz Snob, who looks at anything more accessible than Coltrane's "Ascension" or Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" as rank Philistinism, you MUST own this CD (and Godsdog and Plastic Love Memory and Best of as well; good luck finding Detunized Gravity, but if you do, consider it a sign that you are among the true elect and chosen). And by the way, on a very high end two channel stereo, the production and recording are in a class by themselves, as is the case on all De-Phazz albums. More than anything I've ever heard, De-Phazz is an absolutely essential accoutrement to any respectable Space Age Bachelor Pad. Easily worth the price and the wait for the import.

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!

If you like the retro-vocal melancholy, jazzy, cafeteria-style, 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.

'NUFF SAID.

Elegant, smooth, and sophisticated pop/soul/funk/jazz/electronica. So hip. So chic. So ultra cool. If only more people could experience it! It deserves 10 STARS. Every song (amazing!) is so PERFECTLY arranged, cleverly written, and perfectly performed. Brilliant musicians, singers, compositions, and arrangements. And enough electronic pops & crackles to fill five albums. It is so definitely a guilty pleasure: much too much Pop to qualify as Jazz, but full of jazz overtones and written from a jazz state of mind. Did I mention the ingenious lyrics? And so listenable: I could listen to this for days on end ... and sometimes I do! There are a handful of albums that you can say that about. IT IS WORTH THE $$$.

This is my first CD by this group so I can not compare it to the others except to say that I really love it. I listen to it constantly. I first heard De-Phazz on a Verve Compilation and thought that I would check them out, needless to say I was not disapointed. I was a big Fatastic Plastic Machine fan until I heard De-Phazz. Their songs have that same 1960's Jazz feel mixed in with mondern day dance music. I am a big fan music from yester year, and find that this (with its sophisticated modern feel) fits in just nicely with it. I love most of the tracks on the album most notably: "Nu Chic","Better Now" and "Online". If you are a huge fan of Lounge the this is a must add to your collection.

Prior to purchasing this CD I had only heard one number by this group and that was on the Hotel Costes: La Suite CD. What a pleasure to find that this group isn't a one hit wonder. This is a great CD. There isn't any number on the album that disappoints. A great introduction to this group. I plan on looking at more of their work to purchase in the near future.