review: the house that jack built

In the digital age, the compilation has lost much of its former glory. Not too long ago it was an indispensable format for the music-lover. Brilliantly compiled and telling a special story, the compilation was a significant gain as a particularly successful artist album.

In recent times, the compilation has been cheapened with generic ’Ibiza’ and ’Miami’ labelling as the genre compilation all but disappeared from the scene. This brought DJ T. to the idea, to create a homage to this nearly extinct format. Late 2011 he brought ‘UNITED UNDER THE BALL – 30 YEARS OF DISCO’ to Get Physical. ‘Disco’ as the theme for the first volume of the series not only fulfilled a long cherished desire of DJ T., but was also a highly visible counterpoint to the ubiquitous, mostly House and Techno-stocked season- and theme compilations. The success exceeded all expectations, and proved that a purely digital compilation still finds many friends, satisfying even the most absolute music fans with some ‘hidden gems’ to be discovered while ingeniously opening the door to a tasteful new musical direction.

Months of work have been invested in the follow up, with ‘Jacking House’ as it’s central theme, titled ‘THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT’. The second volume of the compilation series is to be released in two parts, each containing 30 tracks. Like it’s predecessor, DJ T. spins a thread from the time of origin of the genre in a mid 80’s-Chicago to contemporary definitions of that particular groove-feeling in the here and now. The tireless Licensing Department of Get Physical has been far more successful this time in winning the old, (until now digitally unavailable) classics of the genre. Instead of only four, DJ T. presents 35 (!) exclusive hand edits, re-works and remixes of some of the most coveted classics that built House music as we know it today.