The feeling of certainty Not black. Not white. Black and white, like the ?wanted? posters in the Wild West used to be and the concert posters in Nashville, Tennessee, probably still are. The cover of the third ?Famous When Dead? compilation lies before us. Inside the cover, there's no need to look any further, we find the latest Playhouse record in album format, with house on it. Luckily, nothing new in the west, not country music from Offenbach or anything like that. The outer appearance of the ?Famous When Dead 3? sleeve is playfully misleading, perhaps Robert Johnson came up with the idea for it. The two previous albums were clad in sleek black and sophisticated white, colours that correspond well with the Playhouse sound. And yet do not do justice to all the harmonic colours of the Playhouse releases. Playhouse is not black, not white. It is the entire spectrum in between. Anyone who has listened to the eleven (CD) or twelve (vinyl) tracks on ?Famous When Dead 3? has listened to twelve facets of house music and can then ask himself how they manage to fit all that in on this fine label. What's the common denominator of these tracks? What do Losoul's dark remix of International Pony's ?Leaving Home?, the disco organ of Glove's ?Wunderbar?, the swinging steel-blue ?Faux Obsolete? by John Tejada & Arian Leviste, Roman Fluegel's (as Acid Test) journey to the rainbow ?Test One? have in common? How does house turn into Playhouse? The simple answer is this: if the label mangers Ata, Heiko MSO, Joern Elling Wuttke and Roman Fluegel like it. As regards the contents of the music, the answer isn't quite that easy. The common grounds of the tracks on ?Famous When Dead 3? lie less in the technical side of the production. Because Isol饧s future swing on ?Can't Sleep All Night? fuses so many broken and straight beats, beeps and vocals until the tracks almost explode at some point. Or Villalobos' summer hit ?Easy Lee? that's catchy and at the same time as complex as a closet full of forgotten tunes. Melchior Productions produces ever-surprising proof with ?Let's Go Deep? just how compelling constantly repeating the basic beat can be and how exciting slight changes in the embellishment are. With Rework it's similar. The upbeat way the drums come in on ?You're So Just Just? illustrates their typical severity. The depth of their bass is surprising. In contrast to the sweet as sugar Vocoder sound of ?No Under On The Ground? by the Visitors. Captain Comatose's groove on ?$100?, which will probably kick off just as well in some strange revue as in the club. Then there's the extraordinary, almost fluid track ?Inside The Freakbox? by Spektrum: freestyle, a house bastard. The atmosphere is what forges the bond between the tracks on this compilation. Playhouse sounds sophisticated and elegant in all its facets and colours. Stylish. Regardless whether a record rocks or prefers to cuddle. We can hear the quality and the amount of work the producers put into it. There isn't any cheap showmanship, nothing's overhasty, everything seems balanced. Playhouse records want to sound good and they manage to convey a feeling of certainty that it is a good thing if a track doesn't appeal to you one hundred percent. We sit down on the couch and notice: The tracks follow one another so cleverly that they don't ever become boring, not even after listening to the record a zillion times - despite having danced to them at the club often enough too. The fact that they're danceable goes without saying, that's crucial. If it says Playhouse on the outside then there must be house in it. And the fact that ?Famous When Dead 3? still sounds fresh, even though some of the tracks are already a year old, is equally important. The retrospective has to assert itself here and now. A label that releases bittersweet songs such as ?Say Goodbye? by Khan and Julee Cruise, the embracing final tracks of the albums, does have an advantage. And so does a label that doesn't pursue any fads and fashions, instead opting for finding and cultivating a style of its own. Playhouse is regarded as one of Germany's most important house labels, partly also because it's always on the lookout for ways of integrating new sounds and structures from the aspect of danceability. Ways of being innovative. And thus Playhouse's catalogue of harmonic colours is constantly expanding, becoming bigger and more vibrant, between black and white.