Klangspot & Phazz-a-delic Forge Strategic Digital Partnership

Germany, July 1, 2026 – Klangspot Recordings and Phazz-a-delic New Format Recordings are joining forces in a new strategic partnership for the digital music market. As of July 1, 2026, the digital distribution of Phazz-a-delic, including the sublabels PhazzKidzz, Phazz-a-label and Phazz-a-coustic, will be integrated into the Klangspot Recordings ecosystem. Physical distribution for all Phazz-a-delic labels will continue through Alive!.

Both companies see this step as much more than a technical distribution arrangement. The partnership is built around shared values: independent music culture, long-term catalogue development, creative freedom and a modern understanding of how music is discovered, curated and experienced in the digital age.

A Partnership Built on Catalogue, Creativity and Digital Vision

At the centre of the collaboration is one of Germany’s most distinctive independent music catalogues: the music of De-Phazz. With around 1,000 songs and 26 De-Phazz albums, Phazz-a-delic brings a rich and internationally respected body of work into a partnership that aims to strengthen the catalogue’s digital presence while opening new perspectives for future releases.

Phazz-a-delic New Format Recordings has always stood for more than conventional label work. Founded in 2001 by Haluk Soyoglu and Pit Baumgartner, the label grew out of a creative history that helped shape a sound later widely associated with lounge music, nu jazz, downtempo and sophisticated electronic pop.

The term New Format Recordings was never only about format in the technical sense. It was about music that refuses to be reduced to standard categories: music with humour, elegance, groove, depth and a strong sense of artistic freedom.

De-Phazz: A Sound That Shaped Lounge and Nu Jazz Culture

De-Phazz, founded in Heidelberg in 1997 by producer and sound visionary Pit Baumgartner, became the flagship project of this musical universe.

With a shifting cast of outstanding musicians and vocalists including Pat Appleton, Karl Frierson, Barbara Lahr, Sandie Wollasch, Oli Rubow, Joo Kraus and many others, De-Phazz developed a sound that connected jazz, soul, Latin influences, trip hop, turntablism, drum grooves and electronic production into something unmistakably its own.

Albums such as Detunized Gravity, Godsdog, Death by Chocolate, Daily Lama, Plastic Love Memory, Natural Fake, Days of Twang, Big and Audio Elastique helped establish De-Phazz as one of the most original European projects in the field of lounge, nu jazz and electronic jazz culture.

Songs such as “The Mambo Craze,” “No Jive,” “Jazz Music” and “Cut the Jazz” became reference points for a whole generation of listeners who discovered that club-influenced music could be stylish, relaxed, intelligent and deeply musical at the same time.

From “The Mambo Craze” to a Living Catalogue

“The Mambo Craze,” originally released on the 1999 album Godsdog, became one of the defining tracks of the De-Phazz catalogue and a blueprint for the elegant, sample-based, jazz-infused lounge sound that would later travel through bars, cafés, clubs, compilations and private record collections around the world.

But De-Phazz has never been a nostalgia project. Over the years, the collective continued to move forward, expand its language and collaborate across genres, generations and scenes.

Recent and current releases such as De-Phazz presents De-Drums, Pit Sounds, The Mambo Craze – Complete Story, Luck You! and De-Phazz presents Octaves show how alive this catalogue remains. The music continues to connect analogue warmth and digital experimentation, playful songwriting and refined musicianship, deep grooves and cinematic atmosphere.

From First Collaboration to Strategic Partnership

The new partnership follows the successful first collaboration between Phazz-a-delic and Klangspot Recordings around the album De-Phazz presents Octaves. Released digitally through Klangspot Nu Jazzical, the project reimagined De-Phazz material in a neoclassical piano context and opened a new chapter between the two labels.

What began as a release-based cooperation has now grown into a broader strategic partnership.

For Klangspot Recordings, the collaboration is both an honour and an opportunity. Originally founded by Sascha Bauer, Klangspot has grown into an independent music company with a strong focus on carefully curated label work, digital marketing, playlist culture and long-term artist development. Today, Sascha Bauer and Martin Grotzke lead the company as managing directors.

Klangspot brings together the imprints Klangspot Nu Jazzical, Klangspot Nu Classical, Chilled Bear Recordings and Klangspot Nu Lounge, covering modern jazz, neoclassical piano, cinematic instrumental music, lounge, lo-fi and atmospheric electronic sounds.

A Digital-First Label Ecosystem

A key element of Klangspot’s profile is its deep understanding of how music is discovered today. Alongside its label releases, Klangspot operates a wide network of hand-curated playlists across Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and TIDAL.

With more than 100 specialized playlists and hundreds of millions of cross-platform streams, the company has built a discovery ecosystem that is based not only on algorithms, but on taste, context and musical identity.

This makes the partnership with Phazz-a-delic a natural match.

Phazz-a-delic contributes a catalogue with history, character and artistic weight. Klangspot contributes a digital-first infrastructure, editorial sensitivity and a strong connection to today’s streaming and playlist landscape.

Together, both companies want to create new momentum for music that has shaped listening culture for decades and still feels remarkably fresh.

Upcoming Releases and the Next Chapter of De-Phazz

The first steps of the collaboration already point toward the breadth of what is to come. The partnership begins with Gute Laune mit Posaune, an album by Dieter Thomas Kuhn and the SWR Big Band, followed by the dub album De-Phazz presents: In a Rudie Mood.

For spring 2027, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of De-Phazz, Jelly Banquet Vol. 2 has already been announced.

These upcoming releases underline that the cooperation is not simply about preserving an important catalogue. It is about activating it, expanding it and placing it in the right digital context for a new era.

De-Phazz is a name with a deep history, but also a living project with new ideas, new recordings and new ways to connect with listeners.

Two Independent Labels, One Shared Vision

With this partnership, Klangspot Recordings and Phazz-a-delic New Format Recordings are bringing together two complementary strengths: the heritage and artistic individuality of one of Germany’s most influential lounge and nu jazz labels, and the digital-first label approach of a growing independent music company.

For fans of De-Phazz, the collaboration promises renewed attention to a catalogue full of classics, hidden gems and future releases.

For Klangspot Recordings, it is a milestone that strengthens the company’s position as a home for atmospheric, sophisticated and carefully curated music.

And for the independent music market, it is a reminder that catalogue work, digital distribution and artistic vision can still go hand in hand when the right partners come together.

Phazz-a-delic and Klangspot Recordings are treating this step as a creative and strategic alliance. The goal is to combine networks, experience, catalogue knowledge, digital expertise and editorial taste in a way that creates sustainable value for the music, the artists and the listeners.

In a streaming world often driven by speed and volume, this partnership stands for something different:

Depth. Taste. Continuity. And music with a life of its own.

The new partnership between Klangspot Recordings and Phazz-a-delic has also been covered by Musikwoche in Germany.