RELECTURE (vinyl)

Description

A review of one of the most striking French electronic albums of 2019 by some fine flowers of the current scene, including Pilooski and Tolouse Low Trax. The story of Vox Low is that of these Parisians, fans of disco and punk, who tried their luck under the name Think Twice during that hysterical period of Parisian French Touch in the early 2000s. This movement, which was sold to us at the time as an unprecedented musical revolution in the land of baguettes and saucisson, turned out to be nothing more than a bling-bling scam worthy of Rocancourt: whatever you do, in the end, it’s always the bourgeois who come out on top. Despite solid credentials, Think Twice’s music found no echo at the time. 2018, times have changed: who still wants to have fun? Jacques Chirac is losing his mind, bedridden in a private mansion in Paris’s 6th arrondissement behind heavy velvet curtains, Daft Punk hide their baldness under motorcycle helmets and everyone now listens to music on bluetooth via a monthly digital subscription. Gone is the hedonistic right-wing disco, we put away our Donna Summer records - no head for that anymore - and take out Eliphas Levi’s big black book: Can, The Fall or Genesis during the Peter Gabriel era. The time is for punk urgency, depressive and skeletal Krautrock, as well as great shamanic hypnosis. It is now under the name Vox Low that this gang of black jackets from Porte de St Ouen operates. PILOOSKI : DJ and composer, Pilooski made a name for himself through his edits (notably Franky Valli’s Beggin’), the DIRTY compilations, his electro group Discodeine, his productions for Tristesse Contemporaine, Perez or Hypnolove as well as his collaborations with Jarvis Cocker or Baxter Dury. TOLOUSE LOW TRAX : The ethic of Tolouse Low Trax aka Detlef Weinrich stands out in his many releases on labels such as Idle Press, Infiné, Karaoke Kalk, Kunstkopf, Neubau, Themes For Great Cities, Antinote or Cómeme. The German producer is no newcomer to the scene: still an active member of Kreidler and Toresch, he is the man behind Düsseldorf’s famous Salon des Amateurs. His productions as Tolouse Low Trax explore afro-baroque elegance through dark arpeggios leading to a slow and hypnotic release. ABSCHAUM : Since 2010, the French trio Abschaum, led by Chris Poincelot, has been navigating wild terrain. As if to better release the subtle tension of their music: a definitively krautrock heritage mixed, intertwined, worked over with the influences of an enraged Alan Vega. For this heritage, its context, its aesthetic are not insignificant. Hypnotic, synthetic loops, saturated riffs and black voice, Abschaum, “vermin” in German, has lulled its ears with the sounds of Spacemen 3, Ash Ra Tempel and Can. ORESTT : Boss of the label Evrlst.inc and of the famous Nice record store of the same name, Orestt is also an accomplished and rare producer. A handful of maxis have been released under his name, notably on I’m A Cliché, Cosmo Vitelli’s label. He is featured here for his first “remix” in the same vein as his productions: synthetic, dark and hypnotic. “KRAUTROCK INCANTATORY.” --- LES INROCKS --- “A MASS OF NEW WAVE AND ROCK!” --- CULTUREBOX --- “The rhythm section is stubborn, banging its head against the wall of sound, in an incantatory krautrock, in a mechanical new wave: normal, Ivan Smagghe is at the production. Survivors of the group Think Twice and its furious pile-up of house, hip-hop and rock, the duo Vox Low continues to race, à la James Murphy, along the borders between these different factions of dance music in the cold room or the straitjacket. And comes back with an album as frigid as it is languid: the light in question can only be a black light.” --- LES INROCKS ---