Marie Davidson 'City Of Clowns' (ALBUM REVIEW)

 

Combining the playfulness of Confidence Man, the detachment of Grace Jones as well as the sado-masochistic tendencies of Goldfrapp, the darkly alluring 6th long player from French Canadian producer Marie Davidson provides the somewhat startled listener with a 1990s tinged hedonistic dystopian rave odyssey. 

Distinctly European in flavour and released on Soulwax’s DEEWEE/Because Music records, the sparse impersonal electronica harks back to a bygone age, brought right up to date by the distinctly 21st century subject matter, namely corporate behemoths threatening to take over the world. Opening track ‘Validations Weight’ provides slow burning scene setter; otherworldly 90s rave era synth weaving in and out with A.I. tinged spoken word, before the phat beats propelling the insistent groove of ‘Demolition’ fill your head. 

 

Both of slinky robopop grooves ‘Sexy Clown’ and ‘Push Me Fuckhead’ remind me of Felix Da Housecat’s ‘Cyberwhore’. dominatrix and submissive in equal measure, the post industrial techno feel keeping the listener’s feet firmly planted in the club.

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‘Fun Times’ sounds redolent of coked up 1980s nightclubs but in all good ways, Davidson’s breathy vocal alternating in French and English. I’m sure Patrick Bateman would have approved, especially when the urgency and agitation continue on the wafer thin ‘Statistical Modelling’, the brittle track perpetually on the brink of shattering into a million pieces of sonic  shrapnel. 

 

Road-drill basslines underpin propel ‘Y.A.A.M.’ (Your Asses are Mine) before the properly twisted twin techno turbos of ‘Contrarian’ mark the album’s thrilling high point; music to play 1990s video games to when you can’t find the Orbital CD.

 

Naughty but nice. 

 

Words by Michael Price 

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