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[title]You could be forgiven for wondering what Felix Da Housecat has been up to recently. The Chicago stalwart, who helped usher in electroclash over a decade ago with his concept-driven Kittenz and Thee Glitz, hasn’t released new music in nearly four years, unless you count a 2011 cover-mount CD from Mixmag. With EDM’s stock rising, it seems natural that he’d up his game.
This year holds the potential for a Housecat comeback. He deejayed an infectiously good set for the BBC’s influential Essential Mix program in February, and after his Sinner Winner EP drops in a few days he’ll embark on a globe-trotting tour that takes him from Brazil to Europe.
Sinner Winner finds Felix embracing an exuberant strain of electro fitting of his larger-than-life persona. The ebullient “Give Me Body” has a disco bass line, a horn loop, French house–style effects and a vocal worthy of those Sylvester classics. The funky, conceptually-driven title track sprang from Felix’s “idea of a preacher from the South in thee deep-Bible district finding his way into sinner clubland” who eventually “gets caught up in thee nightlife fun world,” according to his website. Age-old story, perhaps, but it has the signature of this mercurial Chicago favorite.
In the meantime, we’ll be looking to this Mid set to be well-stocked with fresh original material, a remix of “Sinner Winner” by Housecat’s chum Green Velvet and previews of a forthcoming long-player. By the time he arrives at June’s Spring Awakening Music Festival, everyone will know where this Housecat’s been.