My Life with Jesus

Releasing this album as Geeez 'N' Gosh, prolific and eccentric producer Uwe Schmidt applies his sense of playful experimentation to gospel house. Of all possible styles to interpret, gospel house probably is one of the least-likely choices for someone as heady and witty as Schmidt. But, of course, this makes the music somewhat ironic, especially considering the rhetoric Schmidt uses for the album and song titles: My Life With Jesus, "Gotta Pray," "I Believe in Jesus," "Jesus Knows," "Calling Jesus," and so on. You can't help but wonder just how sincere Schmidt really is here, but that's not really the point; it's merely an added bonus. Instead, once you look past the Jesus motif, you'll discover the wealth of glitch house filling this album. What Schmidt does is take gospel house -- soulful singing about faith with a straightforward house undercurrent perfect for Sunday afternoon dancing or grooving -- and interprets it with a razor-sharp glitch style. The result is more glitch than house, for sure, but the funk and soul are there, and that's what sets this album apart from the many glitch albums released around the same time in 2000; like Vladislav Delay's celebrated work as Luomo, it has the funk and soul so many icy-cyber-glitch albums lack. Thankfully, Schmidt returned with a follow-up two years later that is just as wonderfully human, if not more so.