Harry The Bastard - Club "H"

Harry The Bastard ? Totally unknown to most of us, I guess. Or at least very, very low profile. Don’t try to google the ‘Club H’ website too : it appears to be Harry’s NYC appartment, where he and his friends gather around the decks and sound system, just to loose themselves in their fav tunes – since Harry does music import for a living, he’s quite well placed for a personal home club, Mancuso style.
As deep house is far too easily a horrible synonym for some third grade, thirteen-a-dozen nu jazz stuff that lacks inspiration and a thousand other things that make good music ‘good music’, this set really is a thing of joy since it offers only crème de la crème tunes, regardless their succes, status, airplay or whatever. The mixing is well worth mentioning, as it is as flawless as can be (don’t have my copy with me now, but I think it was actually done by Lypid’s Dave Micalizzi, on volumes 2 and 3 this definitely is the case – Harry ‘just’ did the compilation) : no ProTools here, just spinning cracking vinyl straight out of Harry’s enviable vault. The resulting trip is warm, dark, adventurous, surprising, spacy and not limited by any restriction of the genre, all this at the same time. If any tracks have to pop out, let it be Kevin Yost’s stripped yet warm remix of ‘I Feel Good Things For You’ ; the deep, deep combo of tracks # 4 & 5 – Hot Lizard's ‘165… Drop’ gets a fantastic deep and dreamy touch by Love From San Francisco ; some great Crazy Penis work ; and sorry I didn’t mention the Global Communication classic yet.
This whole set just oozes the love and passion of someone who clearly forgets which month it is while listening to music, and that is a very warm and welcome surprise in an ocean of prefab, playing safe and standard mixed compilations. This isn’t particulary fresh & happy, or exclusively aiming at your feet, nor is it state of the art, picking the very latest tunes ; it’s just timeless, as it is… well, simply very good music. Highly recommended.

An absolutely stunning mix compilation by Harry The Bastard.

Back in 1999 this cd instantly caught my eye when it was displayed on the "latest acquiries" shelf of my record shop. Besides the thought "What a lovely artwork", the second thing that struck my mind was "Who the f*ck is Harry The Bastard?" and "How come that I never heard about that Club H before?". When I looked at the tracklisting I knew that this was a treasure. Only top class tracks and remixes. The mix is excellent, smoother than silk and takes the listener on a deep, atmospheric and emotianal journey into uncut deep house bliss.

A few years later an editor of Plastiks Magazine had the brilliant idea to interview Harry. It turns out that Harry is a music lover / record collector / cratedigger / dj who lives in New York. "Club H" is the nick name of Harry's appartment.

This compilation was made with love, passion and taste. Get it at all cost and be sure to check the other ones he did.