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| Perfectly Bourgeois Scenarios |
 By: Orr |
Hopefully you got a chance to wrap your ears around the Minus albums I covered in the last two columns. If you didn't, well get on it my friends, because in a week you will be out – or in perhaps – immersing yourself in the new Miss Kittin album. “Oh really?” you incredulously and apathetically mutter as you leisurely lounge while languidly sipping a mint julep. OK, so you’re really sitting with your laptop in a laundromat in the Tenderloin, but I like to create perfectly bourgeois scenarios for my readers as I imagine you’re all living in the fast lane and you’re up to your elbows in unbearable gorgeousfulness. And what’s not gorgeousful about the Tenderloin pray tell?
Furthermore what’s not gorgeousful about Miss Kittin? Nothing, because everything is. Y’all heard that? The diminutive Kittin, aka Caroline Hervé, sounds very gorgeous, and she looks very much so too (believe me). And her new long player, Batbox, is a beautiful fusion of electro, techno, new wave, effortless pop and some definite gothic influences, albeit in a rather tongue in cheek, or is it teeth in neck, fashion? The album artwork was designed by Rob Reger, the man behind “Emily the Strange” and Batbox, like Emily, has a dark but very playful edge. It is definitely pop, but pop in its most artistic sense and with an immediate and electric dance floor appeal. Kittin has solidly demonstrated a talent for this type of material since her early vocal work with Sven Väth and with the Hacker as Miss Kittin & The Hacker.
For proof of this in spades check track seven, “Pollution of the Mind,” where a galloping, lurching and acidic bass line rolls under Kittin’s pretty and evocative, but resigned vocals, as they intone the chorus of “Pollution of the Mind, let’s be deaf and blind sometimes. Pollution of the human kind, let’s be deaf and blind,” and are accentuated by plaintive “oohs and aahs” that bathe the track in a haunting and world-weary air. It sounds like Anne Clark bumping into Vanity 6 at Vivien Vee’s party, while “Poupée Flash” plays in the background. And please don't get me wrong the tracks preceding it are very striking also.
In fact, Kittin comes out of the corner swinging with track one, “Kittin is High,” and it’s opening lines, “The sun is high, I’m going outside. Vampires are asleep, witches are taking over,” while cooed backing vocals spook you into submission. The music is slithery and metallic all at once, hinting at acid classics and Detroit clubs where Blake Baxter hung out while the kids danced to “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” There really is no gulf between artists like Skinny Puppy, Sisterhood and Model 500.
I think Miss Kittin understands the concept, and track two, the title song, demonstrates it fluidly with its jagged bassline, dry beats, whooshy synths and taunting vocals. The next tune, “Grace” throws a mean, growling rock bass line into proceedings. And while Kittin utters “I hear the sound, I hear the bass like a fist in the face,” searing, new wave inflected synths hover overhead like well, like vampire bats. “Barefoot Tonight” fuses that same mercenary bass action with knocking beats and lyrics like “…proud to be a modern girl who’s not ashamed in guitar shops, walking down the street with a leather rain coat,” and “I’m ready to kick some ass, barefoot, tonight.”
“Play Me a Tape,” mellows out the mood a little and opts for a more old school electro funk beat that still retains the intensity and passion of the previous bangers. It’s an electro romance with a pulsing, analog bass line and slivers of glacial keyboards that hang on Kittins every syllable. “Wash N Dry” is a beatless and dreamy electronic lament, filled with acidic textures, a girlish and melancholy vocal and a organ sound that fills the end of the track with gothic trepidation. In fact with all the devilish bass lines and imposing keyboard sounds on this record you might be pulling out the Stranglers’ first album again or reaching for something by Killing Joke.
These bands definitely reveled in their macho angst, but Kittin projects a gentle sense of feminine, existential dread that’s no less effective. “Metalhead” comprises all this and more, with the rockist bass lines of the preceding tracks replaced by a thick, square wave bass, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Konrad Black remix or a Rhythim is Rhythim record. Kittin then adds clicking and snapping percussion, and vocals that rouse and haunt at the same time. “Machine Joy,” track ten, takes on a more Industrial flavor and is perhaps channeling the Teutonic, electro energy of Die Krupps, and their 1989 classic, “Machineries of Joy.” And “Sunset Strip,” tells the story of a woman who is “another fading beauty on Sunset Strip,” over a breathy and shunting track that sounds like a minimal Kraftwerk possessed by Alan Vega’s demons.
The second to last number, “Playmate of the Century,” doesn’t let up the energy and, to be honest, just increases it. The chorus is draped in glassy, synthy new wave chords that lift the whole track and inject the kind of drive you find on an A-Ha record, without sliding into saccharine overtones or any hint of fromage. The same can be said for the closing tune, “Lightmaker,” with its disquieting yet beautiful vocal, ridiculously heavy bass and crisp, futuristic keys. It book ends the record perfectly and closes it with the unnerving yet compelling mood that prevails throughout.
This is a great album that, regardless of how you try to pigeonhole it, refuses to be shoved into a neat little genre. And there are those who will undoubtedly label it as a hark back to electroclash, but it is not; this album is an amalgam of all the glorious influences that the second wave of electro attempted to fuse but was disallowed from doing so by the stateside clambering for mainstream acceptance. More than that, it is the seemingly effortless filtering of a wide range of inspirational musical styles through the medium of modern techno, without grace, style or damned good song writing being sacrificed.
The CD drops February 1st, on Kittin’s own Nobody’s Bizzness label. Go get it, it’s fucking marvelous! And I’m out.
Orr
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Miss+Kittin
http://www.kittinbatbox.com/index.html
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Golden+Boy+With+Miss+Kittin
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Miss+Kittin+%26+The+Hacker?noanv=1
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Sven+V%C3%A4th
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Blake+Baxter
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Die+Krupps
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Skinny+Puppy
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Model+500
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Sisterhood%2C+The
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Stranglers%2C+The
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Killing+Joke
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Vivien+Vee
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Rhythim+Is+Rhythim
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Alan+Vega
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Anne+Clark
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