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Blue Bob
[Soulitude Records]
Blue Bob is a two-headed entity, the result of the meeting of David Lynch (no introduction needed) and blues-rock studio musician veteran John Neff. Obviously, this first album is more branded by David Lynch's trademark touch than by Neff's influence. Quite remote from the fluffy atmosphere of Julee Cruise's two albums, produced by Lynch and co-written with Angelo Badalamenti, Blue Bob nonetheless displays the usual sensuous nocturnal ambiences, industrial sounds and parasite noises (alarms, crackling, electric buzz) that are so characteristic of his films soundtracks. Musically, Lynch and Neff offer a sometimes noisy, sometimes swampy, languid and surrealist electric blues, evoking the against nature union of Robert Johnson and Sonic Youth. Faithful to his obsessions, David Lynch diverts, once again, a typically American stereotype (the old Chicago Blues) to corrupt and bend it to the demands of his agonizing and timeless universe. As usual with the creator of "Twin Peaks", the apparent normality (the careless listener will only hear a gloomy kind of blues record) hides a total chaos: strange lyrics, baffling sound effects, altered voices, nauseating melodies, elusive structure... The (too short) live performance of Blue Bob during the Paris Inrockuptibles festival once again proved Lynch's taste for unexpected shows in a savvy counterpoint to the musicians' irreproachable play. Or how to divert a very popular style to turn it into a freak, both fascinating and disturbing.
Christophe Lorentz |
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| Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man | |
Out Of Season
[Go Beat]
Some meetings should be compulsory. The meeting between Beth Gibbons , the Portishead singer and Paul Webb, bass player in the 80's band Talk Talk, is one of those. Though the first encounter actually took place ten years ago, during an audition of Paul O'Rang's new band audition in 1990, the ensuing magnificent record has just been released, competing with Portishead masterpiece's "Dummy". "Out Of Season" is even simpler and more "unplugged", carried by Beth Gibbons' delicate voice, and made of ten intimate, melancholic and romantic tracks inevitably reminding you of wintry rains. From Tom the Model to the sublime Funny Time of Year, Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man (what a strange pseudonym), the whole album is precious and shall be listened at for years to come.
Renaud Martin |
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Survivor
[SPV/Synthetic Symphony]
Even if it has become a habit, criticising a new Funker Vogt album is no more appropriate today than it was yesterday. You have to admit that the German band never weakened, always offering, album after album, the same muscled and efficient electronic music. Even though they are considered as the ugly duckling of the German electro family, Funker Vogt who states more efficiently the eurodance rhythms and melodies worthy of Italian techno standards, offer there a quite honourable album. "Survivor" is the expected following, with an uncontested talent for mixing futile melodies and aggressive voices only they could have done it. If Tragic Hero is their number one hit, you will find here some tracks just as efficient such as Final Thrill, Red Queen... with an obsessing gimmick and unavoidable rhythmics. So finally, you'll find a nice bunch of "hits" surrounded by more "serious" tracks such as (for the American edition only) a surprisingly calm and quiet 12 minutes' Refugees. Except for this last track, the Funker Vogt's album doesn't have any specificities, only this facility that call for respect, to use time and time again the same ingredients, this has become the current "national sport" in the electro scene.
Christophe Labussière |
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Godspeed You! Black
Emperor | |
Yanqui U.X.O.
[Constellation]
Leader of the canadian underground post-rock label Constellation, the Montreal-based band Godspeed You! Black Emperor offers here a masterly third album called "Yanqui U.X.O." which, as the disk's artwork explains, brings to mind a dangerous mine and war weapons' arsenal. In this 70 minutes' album, composed of three long tracks cut in five chapters, Godspeed knocks us down down with their guitars, violins and drums in a progressive electrified, gloomy and stormy instrumental rock they invented. A powerful music evoking pictures and landscapes but also meaningful and assertive. This is where Godspeed You! Black Emperor marks its difference from other bands since even with no vocals, all its world and words, from the films showed in their concerts to their disk's artwork, reveal a totally inhumane society in which men, in sterile and overcrowded cities, have lost their minds. One finds find in "Yanqui U.X.O." the photograph of an American administration's form allowing people to give away someone they think might be dangerous as well as a sketch showing the links between the different and the American armament industries. But Godspeed You! Black Emperor's members don't do politics, they are above all exceptional musicians able to produce this unique music that's to be found in this magnificent album.
Renaud Martin |
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Melke
[Smalltown Supersound]
Kim Hiorthoy is a real genius coming from this new Scandinavian generation of electronic musicians (Mùm, Thomas Knak, Pansonic) who leave "pop people" dreaming to the point of making lose their guitars (their cliches, sometime their hair too). Do you remember how Radiohead yielded to Boards of Canada 's electronica waves? These kids have been brought up with practical exercises, logical joining games, initiated into manipulating Lego bricks, Mako moulds, Clipo and Mecano. A youth overfed with Plasticine animated films, hippies' ecological cartoons and violent mangas. Many different elements that make a mind free of complexes, rational and dreamy at the same time. So, Kim Hiorthoy is as much a film-maker as he is, in his spare time, a graphist. When he starts to compose, he turns the staging principles of home recording to apply them to his music. He does D.I.Y. with his mechanical melodies based on metal percussions worthy of Pierre Bastien. On the whole, on this second album, following the famous "Hei" mostly appreciated in England, he stammers sonorous onomatopoeia, almost like lo-fi but never sinks in hard experimentation. Like a kid, he enjoys himself so much, you could think an imaginary kindergarten has opened between England and Norway and that Richard D. James and Tom Jenkinson's schoolboys are pulling faces to experimental music makers. Yes, you can say pop music has a future when it is bullied by Kim Horthoy and the likes.
Anthony Augendre |
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All The King's Horses
All The King's Men
[Caciocavallo Soleilmoon / Roir]
After the Legendary Pink Dots' concert at the Maroquinerie in Paris last May, we learned with great pleasure that most of the new tracks we heard that night would be featured on two new albums coming out in autumn. And it is with the same pleasure that we now discover "All The King's Horses" and "All The King's Men", two new additions to the amazing discography of the Pink Dots. With most of the lyrics written after September 11 2001, Edward Kaspel invites us to think about the serious subject of the future of our fragile little planet. But don't worry since, as expected, the Pink Dots avoided to sink deep down into pompous and cheap melodramatic atmospheres. As he's been doing for twenty years, Edward Kaspel keeps whispering and humming his thoughts with subtlety and mischief, alternating childish melodies and gloomier experimental tracks. Even if "All The King's Horses" and "All The King's Men" won't surprise connoisseurs, they are proof that the best band in the world is still here looking after us. Why would you ask for more?
Renaud Martin |
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Fragmente 2
[Memento Materia]
Following the "Fragmente" compilation in 1998, Mesh now releases "Fragmente 2", a second record completing the first one with remixes, b-sides and other rarities. This double CD is obviously intended for the fans, but it also recaps the band's production from the beginning to their previous album "The Point At Which It Falls Apart". Therefore, it's a good occasion to discover the electro pop music of these worthy Depeche Mode's heirs who have been haunting the electro goth's scene for ten years and are a real success in Germany where they are in the top charts. Beyond the singles remixed by the band itself (You Didn't Want Me, Trust You, Scares Me, People Like Me), you will find some gems on this compilation, originally b-sides like Safe With Me or This Without You. These less known tracks justify the release of such a compilation and make of "Fragmente 2" an addition to worthy albums. However, the band's followers who already got all the singles, will only have four remixes (out of 24 tracks) to discover.
Laure Cornaire |
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| Morgan Caney & Kamal Joory | |
Magic Radios
[City Centre Offices]
Kamal Joory drops the veil by forsaking his pseudonym Geiom under which he signed a subtle and complex electronica, promoted by specialised labels such as Neo Ouija, Nature or Skam. And a good initiative it is too, so much it is difficult now to qualify this first album "Magic Radios" of "Skam music". Ridden now of all the stereotypes (there's no trace of "crunchy beats", or "nu breaks", or "drill'n'bass" or "autechrians breaks", or "crispy rhythms" on this surprising collection), Kamal and his friend Morgan Caney, imagine an original sound track starting with microscopic frequencies, marching on brass frameworks, flirting with contemporary jazz, approaching electro-acoustic to finally land on shyly dancing lands. Some people see in it a genetic mutation between the pictorial writing of Ennio Morricone and the ambient of Boards of Canada. You could sometimes critic the lack of unity in these abstract coloured tracks, but the duet obviously doesn't care about genres. They're a real nightmare for journalist to classify but a real delight to free spirited people. To savour urgently before followers take the automatic cloning position.
Anthony Augendre |
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Symbole Of Life
[Gun/BMG]
To the great relief of a majority of fans, "Believe In Nothing" marked the return of Paradise Lost to a kind of metal music less difficult than the electronic experimentations of "Host" (1999). The Halifax quintet's ninth album, "Symbol Of Life", appears from the start as their most achieved album since the very successful "One Second" in 1998. Borrowing the simplicity of the latter and the melancholic darkness of "Icon" (1994), Paradise Lost gives birth to several new little metal-goth gems. From Erased to Self-Obsessed and Symbol of Life, it's hard here to resist to the icy beauty of these new baroque numbers, which remind us that despite some straying years, this band remains the main reference in the genre. Very well balanced between steady guitars and discreet keyboards, the production of these eleven new tracks (Rhys Fulber, ex-Front Line Assembly) here appears rough and simple, with much more humble arrangements than on their previous works. This brilliant exciting album ends with the nearly punk, surprisingly aggressive, Channel for the Pain: "... My existence is a channel for the pain". The limited edition contains a cover of Bronski Beat 's Small Town Boy and a beautiful re-interpretation of Dead Can Dance's Xavier!
Stéphane Leguay |
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A New Morning
[Epic]
Suede is one of those rare bands who, thanks to their exemplary regularity, never disappointed their audience. Positively adored by the British press at the release of their excellent eponymous debut album in1993, the band has since then resisted the passing years, the critics and the line-up changes (especially when Bernard Butler, the guitarist and Brett Anderson's alter ego left after "Dogman Star"). This fifth album is produced by Stephen Street, also known as the appointed producer of English mega star bands like Blur and the Smiths. Despite the album's title suggestion of renewal, Brett Anderson here repeats the same themes he always did, a mix of melancholy and nocturnal straying for middle class heroes. The band's sound is also the same, or maybe a bit more sober than on their previous album "Head Music". But could you blame Suede to be... Suede? Let's be honest, these ten tracks are, thanks to Anderson's voice and a brilliant production, almost irresistible. "A New Morning" is therefore a kind of synthesis of all that made and still makes Suede an unavoidable band in English rock music.
Renaud Martin |
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American Supreme
[Blast First/Mute/Labels]
From DAF to Add N To (X) via The Sisters Of Mercy and Dive, you'll find a lot of bands where the Suicide influence is present. Yet, unlike Kraftwerk, this proto-punk duet has never had a real public success, its obsessing and radical music condemning them to be an elite's cult object and a reference for zealous journalists. Too rock'n'roll for the electro audience and too electro for the rock public, too clever for the punks and too punk for the intellectuals, Martin Rev and Alan Vega benefit from a certain respect in the underground crowd but with no massive enthusiasm. Fans will therefore be satisfied, and those who never accustomed themselves to Vega's languid chant and to Rev's alienating keyboard playing won't change their mind. Totally auto produced, "American Supreme" is tinged with hip-hop sounds (Televised Executions, Wrong Decisions), indus-techno sounds (Death Machine) and even house music (American Mean), all vigorously denouncing the American politics. Lifeless melodies, quavering keyboards, voices drown in reverberation, hypnotic rhythms, obsessing sounds... This is Suicide's style all right, but this time with a touch of modernism and a bit more of diversity. This album is available as a limited edition in double CD with an amazing 1998 live version recorded in London that shows how chaotic and intense the New Yorkers' performances can be. The Paris audience gathered at the Centre Pompidou on November 8 would tell you the same.
Christophe Lorentz |
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Compilation
[A Different Drum]
It's been a long time since we hadn't seen a compilation otherwise than a purely promotional product. Yet, this is the case here with the last album of A Different Drum, the American label which has become totally unavoidable for all synthetic pop fans. Todd Durrant, the compilation's producer, renown DJ in this circle and the label's boss, knows everything that goes on this musical scene which has come out of the shadow with the 80's revival progression. So it's no surprise this compilation is faultless. Not only the fifteen artists chosen, from Echo Image to Neuroactive, The Nine or Neuropa, are all excellent, but the remixed version for clubs - as the title implies - by other talented artists like Iris or DJ Ram are really elaborate (they didn't content themselves with adding infra bass and loading the rhythm box). So even harmless titles like Moulin Noir's Spellbound, Merge's Autumn Leaf or Neuropa's Beyond Here and Now become here technopop anthems which will remind you of the best of your synthetic music concerts. The only drawback: all these remixes have already been released on most major tracks' EPs. But never mind, this musical digest is the cream de la cream, the best you could hope for.
Stéphane Colombet |
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Installed
[A Different Drum]
Here's, at last, a new initiative in the technopop world. After remixing all the current great names of this scene, particularly the American artists of the label A Different Drum, the young Russian artist DJ Ram releases his first real album after two EPs that stood out for their quality production. In nearly one year of great expectation, DJ ram profited from his rivals and discovered some really new melodies, like Depeche mode verses-chorus songs. But unlike for the others, the result is not a simple copy or a pathetic clone of the English band. Probably devoid of a good voice himself, DJ Ram asked others to sing rather than ill-treating his songs. His choices, female and male, are more relevant than those of No Comment, Beborn Beton, Blue October or The Echoing Green. The whole gives a more than pleasant impression because the heterogeneity seems natural, the music does the link between all the tracks and avoids an annoying compilation effect. Some nice hits should be noticed like Why (Would I), Divide and Wide Awake. The Mesh and De/Vision fans will appreciate... The limited edition is a gem containing a second CD with energetic remixes (like the magnificent Save Me by Michael Balch, Front Line Assembly ex-producer) and two previously unreleased tracks.
Stéphane Colombet |
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