Kitty-Yo
Team Kitty-Yo
version forthcoming on www.earplug.cc

Perhaps best known for breaking Canadian ex-pats Peaches and Gonzalez, Kitty-Yo stands as one of Berlin’s most progressive labels since 1994. They’ve released everything from kitchy electro and minimal techno, to folk and post-rock. The breadth of the back catalogue spans from gentle, ethereal bliss to a soundtrack for debauched evenings. For example, Maximilian Hecker’s glacial “Help Me,” a song that brings to mind the dreamy atmospherics of Sigur Ros, is contrasted with the bounce and swollen synthesizers of Gold Chains and Sue Cie’s “Crowd Control.” It’s admittedly tough to switch gears in such an extreme fashion on one CD, but an equal testament to the openminded music policy. CD2 contains unreleased and rare material, highlighted by a 1996 jazz funk and electronic fusion track from To Rocco Rot, and Tarwater’s dreamy, melancholic, “Doppelganger.”