BPM Feature & Interview, May 2007
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Alternative Press, May 2007
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XLR8R Magazine

April 2007, by Fred Miketa


Interview: A Touch of Class

Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen began their career as A Touch of Class by churning out mixes of off-kilter disco and outlandish electro-rock. Nearly 10 years later, the duo has remixed The Gossip, Scissor Sisters, Le Tigre, and A.R.E. Weapons, and released a hefty catalog of singles along with two full- lengths. All of these releases have blasphemed the beat-defined conventions of the dance-stratosphere. XLR8R sat down with Oliver recently to hear dish the dirt on shitty MySpace bands, the asexual nature of digital DJs, and why no one should remix Bob Marley.


A Touch of Class Still Sucks is out now on A Touch of Class Recordings.



XLR8R: How did A Touch of Class come into existence?
Oliver Stumm: I was in New York and Dominique (Domie) was in New York doing an internship for his graphic-design studies. I invited him to work with me–that's how we formed A Touch of Class. We were discussing the problems with the dance field in the late '90s–we were tired of the beat-defining genres… tech-house this, vocal-house that. We thought one should create something that isn't defined by the beat. We wanted to make something that was about the attitude and approach of things.

What separated your songwriting from the beat-defining producers?
We were dabbling in different fields, intuitively. We produced a record that people would refer to as a mash-up. We made an Italo-disco mix–at the time nobody would even talk about Italo-disco. We created songs that had pop appeal–just getting away from the dance structures of the late '90s.

People did not understand what we were doing. Distributors passed on our stuff, passing it off as unsellable. DJs would ask us, 'Why should we play something like this? It doesn't fit in with anything.' We were like, 'That's the point. You should play something that doesn't fit.' You would walk into a club and hear two minutes of a DJ, and you knew how it was going to sound for the next five hours. Shouldn't dance music be about new directions? New things? Be more experimental?

Do your remixes reflect that attitude?
Yes. We love working with bands like The Gossip and Services. A lot of bands we see look like high-school projects. It's like in high school when the art teacher says, 'Alright, you have two hours' time. This is the topic. Come up with something.' That's how these bands sound. Then you hear a band like The Gossip or Services. It's talent and substance. When we saw Services for the first time, there was so much charisma. It's an honor to work with bands like that.

How do you feel about remixes you're not too psyched on?
Sometimes you get a request to remix Marvin Gaye. We're like, 'No. Leave them alone. Some songs should not be remixed.' And why? What's the purpose? A remix of Bob Marley? The production is still outstanding today. Why make an abstract, dancey tune out of a Bob Marley song? Just make a new tune!

How do you feel about the whole "MySpace Revolution" in electronic music?
It's not helping music that much. It's funny these new developments seem great at first. Bands that are virtually unknown can become big through these channels. But then, all of a sudden all of these, what I like to call, "promotional bands" pop up and overshadow everything. They invest 99.9% of their time in promotions. Most of [them] are horrible, and they have 10 times more friends than a very good band. So, yeah, they're great promoters, but great promoters don't always make great musicians.

There is so much junk, you can't see through it anymore. We get so many messages and requests–"Listen to our music…" and "Feedback would be welcome…" Even if the success rate would be 1%, I'd do it. But the success rate is less than 1%. I go on these sites and it has nothing to do with us or with what we do. It's not similar. It's not interesting. Even you guys have to sift through this crap. It's insane.

Like with DJing?
The accessibility of the digital revolution has destroyed a lot. This whole laptop-DJing, Serato thing is amazing. You can walk into a club with 10,000 songs ready to play. That would be a busload of vinyl! But then, what's the result? All these half-ass, wannabe DJs don't know the ABCs of how to get a dancefloor going. Everything sounds crappy, because it's all free downloaded MP3 crap, mixed together in their playlist they made the night before. It's unsexy. Now, DJs look like two accountants in the club. They're staring into their screens. Everybody's playing the same stuff again. We've done blindfold tests. You can tell when an MP3 is playing–it's one big squashed-up thing. I don't hear good quality music anymore.

Would you consider yourselves minimal in the studio?
Ableton and so forth have really great instruments. You can edit yourself to death, but the quality of Ableton is already a little squashed and you can hear the difference. We try to not go through too much digital processing. We still use analog synthesizers and live instruments. We record them through tube compressors, and then through expensive analog-to-digital converters, then into Logic. I was working with a veteran producer once and he was hooking up all of this stuff and I told him, 'I can't tell the difference.' He said, 'You're too young, you can't hear it yet. Just wait a few years.' He was absolutely right.

If you could eradicate any musical genre, what would it be?
Trance. There's no substance to me. It's really formulaic. I don't really know it that well, to tell you the truth. It's just something I don't like. But I also don't like liver. Some people may like it, but…

Electronicbeats.net Interview, April 2007
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The Hippo

April 2007

Manchester, UK
A Touch of Class, Still Sucks
ATOC Recordings, 2007

One distinct characteristic of this decade's musical landscape is the power and respect given individuals who are in general much more at home behind the mixing board and/or off backstage someplace. Seems like everyone with a
sequencer or a Casio is more intent on an aggregate producer/DJ/dealmaker role than simple rock stardom, which may not be so much a byproduct of MySpace as it is a desire not to become a victim of evil industry. At any rate, ATOC aren't just label guys or DJ guys or all-purpose producer guys but a two-man insurgence, having broken the Scissor Sisters and The Ones while the Keystone Kops in downtown major label land were snoring. Like its predecessor, Sucks, the remixes of Still Sucks fixate on house-ing up, as best can be done, old-school disco tunes from both new and established bands. Le Tigre's diva-shout-out "After Dark" gets made over for a proper splash at Twilo; Erasure's "Don't Say You Love Me" undergoes radical percolation therapy, and the Flying V guitars come out for Scissor Sisters' gay-disco opus "Filthy/Gorgeous." B — Eric W. Saeger

Chord Magazine

April 7, Sherman Oaks, CA

A TOUCH OF CLASS
A Touch of Class Still Sucks! [ATOC]
[Fans of LCD Soundsystem, Scissor Sisters, and Le Tigre take note.]
3/5

The world's most self-deprecating DJ duo has returned with a triumph. Still Sucks is a stirring collection that fans on both sides of the Atlantic will appreciate. ATOC's DJs are a rare breed of remixers who dare to accentuate the melodic parts of the songs they manipulate rather than contort them into soulless, drug-induced soundtracks. New York-via-Zurich provocateurs Domie Clausen and Oliver Stumm make their mark by essentially letting the songs speak for themselves. Their retooled versions of the Gossip's "Listen Up" and Le Tigre's "After Dark" are prime examples of their prowess - the real instruments in the original recordings still radiate under ATOC's frenetic sheen. The production team proves they're true music fans, never muting the essence of the artists' works. In fact, on the sleazy Scissor Sisters track "Filthy/Gorgeous," they morph the sound into something even more organic that the original. Some songs do indeed hearken back to their European roots - their revamped versions of two dreamy Waldorf tunes end up sounding like every Kylie Minogue release in existence. But the remainder of this resplendent album is all but a guarantee that Domie and Oliver will be the rightful heirs to the DFA throne someday.

-Melissa Bobbitt

STYLUS MAGAZINE

A Touch Of Class Still Sucks!
Reviewed by: James Cobo
Reviewed on: 2007-04-05



As a teenager, I remember finding it irreconcilable that any discussion of disco music could ever be couched in terms other than the ones applied to its basest, most nakedly cash-grabbing novelty singles; you probably couldn't have paid me enough to admit that there was any fundamental difference between "Disco Duck" and "Kiss Me Again." This hardly makes me unique—some might say that the Chicago White Sox once subsidized a celebration of thousands of people sharing my same pubescent mindset with decidedly unsexy results—except for the fact that I was a teenager during the Clinton administration, meaning even a decade and a half after disco's alleged demise, disco's perceived stupidity was still pervasive enough to leave a generation of listeners suspicious and wary.

It's tempting to say that disco's become more sophisticated in the ensuing decade and change since my balls dropped, but anyone who's paid the genre even the slightest shred of attention can state categorically that that's not true. We may be better equipped to tell the sincere genre explorations from the one-off chart campaigns but, in the end, all we can do is hope for the best in separating the gloriously stupid from the vacuously stupid. Of course, this task isn't exactly challenging, especially since we've got outfits like Brooklyn's A Touch Of Class compiling their in-house production and remixing efforts explicitly for our convenience. If you ever wanted to hear some disco music that sounds ridiculous and great in equal measures, one need exert oneself no further than picking up a copy of A Touch Of Class Still Sucks! and walking towards the register. It really is that simple.

But caveat emptor: you really do need to be prepared for some unalloyed ridiculousness. Keep in mind that we're talking about a compilation of the label which broke the Scissor Sisters by releasing their gloriously what-the-fuck-tastic cover of "Comfortably Numb," a track wholly representative of ATOC's aesthetic method of obliterating any semblance of tastefulness with a shock-and-awe campaign of flamboyance. (I totally mean that in the most complimentary way imaginable.)

It helps, of course, that ATOC's talent for arranging their songs seems to run right down to their marrow; it's certainly a lot easier to enjoy a song like Waldorf's "Erlkonig," which takes its lyrical cues from a Goethe poem and blares out lines like "My son, why cover your face in such fear / You see the elf-king, father is near!" with a nigh-imperceptible degree of irony, when you've got a bassline or a breakdown as merciless as the ones contained therein. More importantly, they know when not to mess with a song's preexisting dynamics, as made evident by their rework of Services' "Element of Danger" which wisely adds little to the song beyond a triumphantly gauche breakbeat ripped straight from the Prodigy's "Firestarter."

I realize, of course, that to characterize a record as "ridiculous" does it a substantial disservice, especially when the record in question comes complete with both an admirably consistent focus and an unbridled enthusiasm rarely seen in any genre these days. But a reviewer's job is to prepare the reader for the journey on which a record's about to take them, and I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to make you aware of the potential for monolithic embarrassment contained within A Touch Of Class Still Sucks!' seventy-six minutes. Just keep in mind that it's probably just as productively mortifying a musical experience for that pretty young thing over in the corner, and also that it's not about to catch feelings if you break the ice by laughing at its existence. You might also try dancing to it, though.

URB, April 2007
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Venuszine.com

A Touch of Class Still Sucks! (ATOC)
by Marisa Torrieri

03/29/2007


Where do sex kitten Kathleen Hanna vocals mingle with rave-worthy Erasure dance beats and Scissor Sisters' disco glam? The answer: On A Touch Of Class Still Sucks!, the sophomore release from the New York City duo of the same name. Swiss-born Domie Clausen and Boston/Zurich native Oliver Stumm, who came together in 1999 with earnest the goal of launching under-the-radar artists, follow the pattern they set on their first remix album. ATOC doesn't stick to one genre of club/dance or pop music. Each song is gingerly plucked and treated as its own template and infused with peppy electro keyboard beats or accented with '90s techno vibes.

The duo helped propel the so-hot Scissor Sisters, producing the band's first singles at the turn of the century, and so it's no surprise the Sisters' hit "Filthy Gorgeous" is one of the album's gemstones: Jake Shears' vocals sizzle overtop an electrified beat and tucked-in sonic details (bleeps, beeps, guitar riffs, etc.). The other must-downloads are the Gossip's "Listen Up" (an extended take of the original garage-dance hit), and a grittier version of Services' "Element of Danger."

But if you're not one to pluck songs and would rather just have your dance grooves flow like one big musical house party, Still Sucks! is perfect for your next springtime soiree.

8/10

LA Citybeat, March 15 2007
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Urb, March 2007
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Greenpaeness.org

March 15, 2007

Waldorf, "Erlkonig"
Given how quickly disco music can vacillate from "cool" to "uncool" in the eyes of its consumers, it's hardly a surprise to see how much of it - especially the modern stuff, although then again being right in the thick of modernity does tend to fog up one's vision - expressly deals with coolness. I mean, the DFA's brand of disco music is nothing if not painstakingly cool; nobody's going to chide you for not having any particular affinity for drawn-out cold-eyed dance-music epics, but that shit's clearly something for you to work out with whichever god you worship. Likewise, nobody's ever going to hold it against you for failing to see the appeal of a corpus of work as unyieldingly, mortifyingly ecstatic as that of A Touch Of Class; I've been a fan of theirs for nearly four years now, but I've pretty much assumed it's a pursuit in which I'm doomed to engage alone due to my inability to begrudge people's reticence to wave the flag for ostentatiously chintzy disco tricks and gleeful pansexuality-for-pansexuality's-sake. Lucky for me, then, that enough like-minded scions of truth exist on this planet to necessitate a sequel to the seminal A Touch Of Class Sucks! compilation; luckier still, it's almost as unimpeachable a collection of well-honed ridiculousness as its older brother. What always separated ATOC from their lesser cousins was their capacity to use stupidity as a hook rather than as a wholesale justification for a song's existence; it's not a coincidence that the Scissor Sisters' magesterial cover of "Comfortably Numb" first came out (heh) on ATOC, since it embodies the two-fisted combination of inarguably flawless music and "wait, what?"-worthy content which defines so much of ATOC's most enjoyable work. On Sucks, the standout (or at least the standout among tracks I hadn't heard before cracking open the packaging) has to be Waldorf's "Erlkonig", a lordly little slice of icy Kraut-disco magnificence gleefully ruined by its lyrics about elf-kings and stolen princesses and all sorts of stuff better left to unsavory mailing lists for people who write Willow fan-fiction; this is a song which, I swear to god, contains the couplet "MY SON, WHY COVER YOUR FACE IN SUCH FEAR/You see, the elf-king, father, is near!" for God's sakes. Frankly, I'd have a harder time imagining someone not being mortified by stuff like this; lord knows my toes were curling the first few times. What's great about "Erlkonig", then, is how lackadaisically its attitude towards forcing you to confront its preposterousness plays out; I like to think of the lyrics as the stick to which the musical carrot is tied and dangled in front of my face, the tunnel of light through which God coaxes dead folks' souls into the next world, every torturous second of The Wall not detailing the immutable consequences of failing to eat one's meat - in other words, the stuff you endure in order to confirm the overall experience of the journey. As someone who got acquainted with dance music through the unyieldingly dogmatic peaks and trenches of trance, I can say with unequivocal confidence that this is one hell of a great way to force a rapturous audience into putting off their pleasure; actively thinking that something's stupid, after all, still requires active engagement with the actual song at hand, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most dance music (or music in general for that matter). Besides, the more serious dance music gets, the more blood gets mixed in with the ink delineating the depths of humiliation the end-user will eventually bring on him- or herself; it strikes me as an intensely pragmatic choice - not the only choice, mind you, but an unequivocally viable one - to just go ahead and get the mortification over with now and have some motherfucking fun. And I swear to God that "Erlkonig" is fun as fuck in a way that will in no way remind you of a term paper.

TimeOut Chicago

March 2007

Still Sucks! (A Touch of Class Recordings)

This New York City–based, Swiss-born electro-trash remix outfit is credited with discovering the Scissor Sisters, but don't go holding that against the group. On this collection, the duo puts a glammy, disco-rock edge on tracks by Erasure and Le Tigre. The highlights are a ballsy treatment of the Gossip and fey Swiss popsters Waldorf.

4/6 stars

A TOUCH OF CLASS - STILL SUCKS! (ATOC)

Djfix.com
3/4 stars

My overall reaction to this CD is that it's a bit blase. Which isn't to say that it's poorly done. The mixing is tight, there's plenty of energy and it strikes a fine balance between eclecticism and monotony. But in the end, too much of this just seems like uninteresting pop rock fused with dance elements we've heard before. No doubt this album would go over well in a club or at a party because there are plenty of dancers and listeners who will appreciate the vibe on tap here. But the hook missed me by a few inches. There are some bright spots in an otherwise unassuming album, however. The two remixes of songs by The One (these are all remixes and "productions" by A Touch of Class, by the way) are compelling, with "Ultramodern (ATOC Old School Dub)", for example, mixing modern dance flavors with retro touches. Then there's the trance meets synth pop lushness of "Erklonig" by Waldorf. I was, of course, enamored by the rocked up mix of Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous". And none of this is bad. It's just not all interesting.-- review by Kristofer Upjohn

Sisters in Charms

There's no shortcut to U.S. success for Scissor Sisters.
By Annie Zaleski 

Published: March 8, 2007
http://www.pitch.com/2007-03-08/music/sisters-in-charms


When Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen of the New York label A Touch of Class Recordings first saw the Scissor Sisters perform in 2000, they saw something special. This isn't a surprise now — over-the-top shows have helped the quintet become pals with Elton John and fill arenas in Australia — but back then, a Scissor Sisters gig wasn't exactly the flamboyant spectacle it is today. In fact, that night in Brooklyn, Stumm and Clausen witnessed an embryonic band: Jason Sellards (aka "Jake Shears") and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman, performing with a CD player and a microphone. The pair had yet to add glamorous vocalist Ana Matronic to the lineup (Shears met her at a 2000 Halloween party); neither guitarist Del Marquis nor drummer Paddy Boom, who was the last to join the band, were in the picture.

Stumm and Clausen eventually signed Scissor Sisters to A Touch of Class, which released a trio of songs that helped the band snag a licensing deal with Polydor/Universal: the new-wave-synth-pop swerve "Electrobix"; a warm, digi-funk cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb"; and the hi-NRG discotheque scream "Filthy/Gorgeous." But what Stumm remembers from those early days illuminates quite a bit about the band's success.

"They were talented insofar that the singer, Jason, has a very good singing voice, a lot of energy," Stumm says today. "Scott has a lot of talent in creating music and accompanying Jason. We could feel the chemistry between the two. We also liked that they were not coming too much out of clubland. It was more pop music than just another DJ act or something. They were writing real pop songs, and we liked that about them."

That sense of craft powers last year's Ta-Dah, the Sisters' sophomore effort, especially the galloping piano frolic "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" — a song co-written by John, whose 1970s catalog has clearly influenced the band. The single made some noise in the United States, but Ta-Dah lacks anything destined to become as ubiquitous as "Take Your Mama," the bar-band semi-hit from the Sisters' 2004 self-titled debut. Because it's not an immediately poppy record and isn't really danceable overall, consumers and critics alike greeted Ta-Dah with shrugs and scratches of the head. It didn't fit the mold of what Scissor Sisters music should sound like. But Ta-Dah does sound like an album created by musicians who are completely on the same wavelength — something that drummer Boom confirms.

"The first time around was more of a Lennon-McCartney thing with Jake and Babydaddy," he says by phone from the UK on a recent Saturday afternoon. "The first record was written generally in pieces. Some of it was written without certain members. We went from two to three to four to five [members], and now we tour as a six-, sometimes eight-piece, band. The second record was written with everybody in and out of the studio, presenting different ideas, bringing different songs."

Diversity is certainly evident on Ta-Dah, if not its strongest asset. Shears does his best Rufus Wainwright impression on the lushly orchestrated Broadway vamp "Intermission" (also featuring contributions from Sir Elton). "Kiss You Off" is a Technicolor romp that sounds like it could break into "Knock on Wood" at any moment. The bustling "Ooh," with its percolating percussion and bass, conjures the polyrhythmic moments on Talking Heads' Remain in Light. And "Paul McCartney" is the sonic equivalent of a raging party, full of peppy horns and manic-panic beats.

The best song on the album, though, is "The Other Side," a slow, moody number with muted synths and a throbbing pulse. Shears ditches his falsetto for a creepier style, and the result is as sleek as any Roxy Music track, with a dramatic, blazing guitar solo that seems plucked from an episode of Miami Vice.

"That's so funny you say that — that's one of my favorites, too," Boom says about the song. "That was one that sort of came out of left field. That's an example of another direction that the band can go in — sort of the moody and melancholy instead of upbeat and fun."

Indeed, Scissor Sisters doesn't get enough credit (in America especially) for being a band of proper musicians with aspirations for longevity and a desire to transcend the pop realm.

"People have to come see the show," Boom says. "Then you get sort of the full picture. There's a lot of razzle-dazzle appeal that people think is just some sort of pop thing that doesn't have much substance. But the heart of it, it's a band — now more so than ever because we've toured so much and spent about three years on the road in the last four years."

Skinnie, February 2007
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Intro, February 2007
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Raveline Review, February 2007
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Raveline Interview, February 2007
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Recordcollector, February 2007
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Groundcontrolmag.com

ARTIST: A Touch of Class
DATE: 02-28-07
ALBUM: A Touch of Class Sucks!
LABEL: A Touch of Class

Now Playing: "Trigger (ATOC Remix)" by The Alpine

If you've been in a bar or club over the past few years, there's a damn good chance you've heard at least one song from the NY-based electro-rock-pop label A Touch of Class. For close to ten years, ATOC has been dropping dancefloor bombs from artists like Waldorf, The Ones and Scissor Sisters, and capped off a few years of hit 12-inches with their 2003 release A Touch of Class Sucks! which is a 2x12 vinyl release divided up in four sections: Punk Sucks!; Rock Sucks!; Disco Sucks!; Electro Sucks! The album is a DJ's dream since you basically could spin The Fox's "Ride On (ATOC Disco Dub) into Klein & MBO's "Dirty Talk (ATOC Re-Edit)," flip the record on table one and play A.R.E. Weapons' "Streetgang (ATOC Remix)." Rinse. Repeat.

So four years later, apparently the label is just as shitty as it was in 2003, releasing another label compilation entitled A Touch of Class Still Sucks! This time, label owners Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen push the limits even further, extending their pop-crossover roots deep into the underground. Leading off Still Sucks! is a hot revamp of "Listen Up" by Washington's synth-rockers The Gossip. The ATOC tag-team only needed to slightly alter this one for the DJs, adding in a more driving kick, some dope samples and an ear-friendly hi-hat. The structure remains, as the OG version is cool enough as is, but a little too rocking for the dancefloor. Following that one is a hard-house recreation of Le Tigre's best song from their 2004 release The Island. The ATOC crew sprinkle some magic dust on this cut, spicing it up, pulling it out of the oven with the cooked-up "After Dark (Atoc Remix)." Once again, not straying too far from the original, but giving this song just enough of a boost to get any ass in gear.

Just like their first comp, ATOC show off how versatile they are on such songs as "I Feel Upside Down (ATOC Vocal Mix)," which doesn't fall into any true dance category. It rocks as much as it grooves, with a funky bassline, hot vocals and a guitar line that ties this musical knot together so tight it would impress a patch-emblazoned Boy Scout. Perhaps the hottest cut o the album is "Trigger (ATOC Remix)" by The Alpine. It's jumpy and fun as hell with an edgy, distorted bassline. The vocals are catchy and work both as a dancefloor banger or an indie hit. Welcome to Crossoverville.

Rounding out the album is a remix of old-school synthesists Erasure, where ATOC take a stab at "Don't Say You Love Me," birthing ATOC's Ravin' & Rockin' Remix. There is some serious drama on this jam. The tight electro synths and samples on top of a pounding bassline make this track the perfect midnight fill-the-floor cut. Easy to mix in and out of, the song builds and build and as much as they say not to, you will love this cut. All in all, A Touch of Class Still Sucks! shows off the label's ingenuity, making them a powerhouse in the U.S. Pound-for-pound ATOC can easily compete with Montreal, Berlin and Rotterdam on the international dance music scene. Score one for the home team.

Mark Ziemke

MTV.com

February 2007

Various artists' A Touch of Class Still Sucks!:

New York production duo A Touch of Class are often credited with "discovering" the Scissor Sisters, but whether you agree with that notion or not, the two parties did work together on the Sisters' early efforts. This week, A Touch of Class follow up their A Touch of Class Sucks! compilation from four years ago with a new set brandishing their tweaked versions of songs by the Sisters, Le Tigre, the Gossip, Erasure and more.

Dallas Voice

Feb 22, 2007

Class clowns


Acts shine on New York remixers' sophomore surprise


A Touch of Class
"A Touch of Class Still Sucks!"
A Touch of Class Recordings

While the remixes often rule nightclub dance floors, these ancillary booty-shakers are usually confined to B-sides and obscure compilations. In the case of New York-based remixing duo A Touch Of Class, this rule is a shame.

Composed of producers Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen, ATOC have turned the fine art of the remix into a science, distilling tracks into their groovy essence before cutting them loose with inventive new twists that seem as natural as the original single.

Following up on their 2003 debut, "A Touch of Class Sucks!" the duo roar back onto the scene with a sharp follow-up. "A Touch of Class Still Sucks!" devotes the lion's share of its time to queer artists.

The disc opens with a Blondie-inspired mix of "Listen Up," by lezzie-led punk trio The Gossip. The band's guitar-driven groove subs for the bare-bones approach of the original single, giving the track a smoky groove that suits Beth Ditto's soulful howls.

On a mix of Scissor Sisters' "Filthy Gorgeous," dirty disco is replaced with a tight, lo-fi beat. The cut is a mix of dancey grunge.

Two tracks from queer undergrounders The Ones, "Ultramodern" and "Picture Perfect," provide the disc's only blast of techno, with a tight dub edge rounding out The One's house flavor.

Other standouts include animated re-workings of Le Tigre's "After Dark" and Erasure's "Don't Say You Love Me."

Though the original tracks featured on "A Touch of Class Still Sucks!" span the horizon, ATOC emerges with a fun signature groove.

By Gilbert Garcia - Pop Music Critic

DE:BUG
07.02.2007

V/A_A Touch of Class still sucks_(A Touch of Class)

Dominique Clausen und Oliver Stumm hatten mit ATOC neben Larry Tees Label die wichtigste Plattform für New Yorker Electroclash geschaffen. Ich sag nur: Scissor Sisters. Mehr Klasse, als man ihnen damals zugestehen wollte, hatten auch Waldorf und Mind & Tomasi. Hits hagelte es sowieso. Heute macht das Label weiter. Mit "The Gossip" halten sie clever Anschluss an New Rave, und die Rockröhren-Sängerin und ihre beiden staksigen Bübchen sind ja auch wirklich schwer putzig. Waldorf bauen ihre glaubwürdige Radiotauglichkeit aus und werden immer stärker zu den Bee Gees des Disco-Clash-Schlagers. The Ones sind mehr Kabarett, als ihnen gut tut, obwohl sie spaßige Hit-Banalitäten eingebaut haben. Die Scissor Sisters sind die alberne Parodie von kapriziösem Pop, die sie immer sind. Aber The Alpine ragen mit ihrem theatralisch burlesken Jubel-Pop, ihrer offensiven Plastikversion von Stadion-Rock, heraus. Doch vorne dran ist das insgesamt nicht mehr. Störrische Eigenart, die das ausgleichen könnte, hat es auch nicht. Der strenge Tyrann Pop straft solche Missachtung unbarmherzig ab.
jeep ooo

(3/5)

Clash Magazine, January 2007
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One Week, January 2007
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Repeat, January 2007
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Max, January 2007
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Bremer, January 2007
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20 Minuten, January 12 2007
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Heute, January 12 2007
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Zuritipp, January 11 2007
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Time Out London, January 10 2007
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EQ MAGAZINE | Issue 21
Print Version | 12 Jan 07
www.eq-mag.co.uk

Label Profile: A Touch Of Class

Production duo Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen-aka A Touch Of Class-have introduced the world to the like of Le Tigre, The Ones and Scissor Sisters through their eponymous New York label. As ATOC prepares to release its latest compilation album, EQ caught up with the boys to find out more…

When and why did you set up ATOC?
We set up A touch Of Class in 1999. We didn't want to deal with all the bullshit in the industry and we didn't want to fit in. We didn't want to be stuck in just one musical genre and wanted to go our own way. It was all about having the right attitude with a no-holds-barred approach and going into new territory. Of course everybody thought we were either insane or completely out of touch. We usually get remarks like: "You guys just don't get it," or: "The Scissor Sisters thing was great but now you lost it." But We think we have quite a good track record. Industry people always want a static formula to work with. They don't realize we are way ahead of them!

How would you describe ATOC's output?
We just do what we believe in. Style-wise, nothing fits with each other except that it has the right attitude and a new approach-quality is what it stands for. We're always pushing the boundaries, never standing still with an existing formula.

What's been your biggest seller? Why do you think it did so well?
Flawless by The Ones (which George Michael used on his album as well). This song just doesn't seem to go away. Scissor Sisters wasn't bad either. To us a very big hit was also Waldorf's You're My Disco because it never was an industry hit but after 6 years now we hear it more than when it came out.

What's the hardest thing about running a label?
Trying to release, market and sell good music in these over-hyped MySpace-aged times. There are too many self promoting DIY lame-ass groups with really bad music out there that are destroying the whole music culture world and getting away with it. Our groups have a hard time getting a gig!
Another thing that's hard is always being compared with some earlier release: "Well, it aint like Flawless". Hey if we wanted to give you something like Flawless we would just re-release it. The worst review I read is when someone criticized one of our productions by saying it was too housey. Yeah, and there's too much pasta in your spaghetti!

What's been the worst moment in ATOC's history?
When we realized that we only had 1 million friends on MySpace and Ed Banger had 2 million. We never really had a worst moment-or we've just been in total denial. We've had bad moments like when our distributors rejected the Scissor Sisters single Comfortably Numb saying they couldn't sell something like this.

What are ATOC's plans for the next 12 months?
We our going on a European DJ tour because we are amazing DJs and not everyone knows that. We're also releasing The Ones' debut album which is really quite amazing. It has quality songs and a bonus CD with all the special remixes and stuff in one package. We'll be releasing an album of the band Services which is the newest cutting-edge, boundaries-breaking stuff we have right now. If you see them live you'll understand. Again, breaking the mold and moving on. The distributors won't be happy...

How do you go about tracking down new artists to sign?
We don't really. We have just been concentrating on developing our small roster. But in the past we usually just bump into something new and fresh that is unique. We keep our ears open. It's not about trying to sign something that fits the labels roster or has the preconceived sound we're looking for. It's about hearing something new that one would of never thought of.

Any advice for any budding producers looking to sign to ATOC?
Don't send us any demos or messages with links on MySpace-we don't listen to them because we don't have the time. Come to one of our gigs and talk to us before you submit anything. If it sounds like something else we don't want it. And if it sounds like Scissor Sisters we definitely don't want it.

Any other bits and pieces going on you want to tell us about?
Yeah come to our gigs! You will hear a surprising non-formulaic DJ set!

For all their forward thinking and studio tinkering — not to mention a Top 10 UK hit — production duo A Touch of Class still aver that they "suck." Despite their contentions, Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen prove they do anything but with this remix compilation. Some things they actually do: cement themselves as taste-makers, if not presagers, with their distorted dub-disco of Services' "Element of Danger"; stress the filthy in Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous" by exposing the steel of guitar strings; and prick ears with their treatment of the Gossip's "Listen Up." Most remarkable
about ATOC's second comp is their ability to not only provide DJs with club-ready material, but also to exploit such a small pool of artists so broadly. Reworks of two tracks by the Ones — the retro electro of "Ultramodern" and the Rapture-riffic "I Feel Upside Down" — served up back to back, sound distinct enough to be mistaken for two entirely different bands. (MC)

DJ Magazine

(January 2007)

Cool New York production dudes display their label's wares. ATOC's Oliver Stumm and Domie Clausen first appeared at the turn of the century with their own debut single, followed by releases from The Ones, Waldorf and Scissor Sisters. Their first compilation, in 2003, not only summed-up the quality of their productions, but also revealed their on-the-button vision. A vinyl double-pack, they called each side "Disco Sucks", "Rock Sucks", "Electro Sucks", and "Punk Sucks"--casually predicting the dominant dance scenes of the next three years. This sophomore compilation shows they've lost none of their touch. Stand out tracks and remixes include The Gossip's "Listen Up", ATOC's "Upside Down", Le Tigre's "After Dark", Erasure's "Don't Say You Love Me" and The Ones "Picture Perfect". Mint Track: The Ones "Picture Perfect (ATOC Re-wind Dub)"

Ben Osborne 4.5/5