- Artist
- Joakim
- Label
- !K7
- Release date
- 19th February 2007
- Genre
- Electronica
As mainstream dance music flounders after its Nineties heyday, the resurgence of live rock music has seen a number of artists make attempts at splicing the two art forms together. While Britain remains wary (perhaps still suffering an indie-dance mediocrity hangover), American artists such as The Rapture, !!! and LCD Soundsystem have used Eighties punk and Nineties house as inspirations to define new, kick-arse, funky rock/dance collisions.
If this, French electronica producer Joakim Bouaziz's third album is anything to go by, mainland Europe is now taking up the baton. Whereas on previous albums Tigersushi and Fantômes, Joakim took a more traditional approach to his oeuvre, using synths and sequencers (check out club hits Come Into My Kitchen and Are You Vegetarian?), this time around he's brought in a live band. Luck played its part here, mind – 60 tracks' worth of music was lost after Joakim's computer crashed – although you suspect that Joakim's long association with DFA Records (James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem's label) may already have been making its mark.
As a result of all this, Monsters & Silly Songs is the sound of Joakim getting away from the PC and having some fun. This is an epic concoction of cinematic post-rock and prog electronica, pitched alongside funked up punky dance music just itching to be played live. Sleep In Hollow Tree, with its Assault On Precinct 13-style synth stabs and insistent beat, the acoustic alt-country of Devil With No Tail's and the haunting Doors-like Palo Alto all provide the former – Joakim using his electronic trickery to enhance the live performances with textures and atmosphere.
This is an album that flies when the band are unleashed on a groove. On I Wish You Were Gone, Lonely Hearts and Rocket Pearl, Joakim's band lock in with urgent and dirty basslines, jagged guitar riffs and sinister vocals that recall a bit of Franz Ferdinand here, some Primal Scream there – and even a dash of Nick Cave!
Of course, Joakim has his Aphex Twin moments, dabbling in sequenced experimentalism at interludes throughout the album. Old sound design habits die hard for these boys. But where the irony for so many so-called dance producers is their losing the groove in a haze of knob-twiddling and oscillator fiddling, Joakim is funkier than ever by way of a good old fashioned live band. Good job that PC crashed.
