Vox Low

Enough with right-wing hedonist disco, let's put the Donna Summer records away and dig out Éliphas Lévi's big black book: Can, The Fall, or Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. This is a time for punk urgency, for depressed minimal krautrock, for the great shamanic hypnosis. This bunch of greasers from the Porte de St Ouen area now perform as Vox Low, with Jean-Christophe Couderc (vocals, synth) and Benoît Raymond (bass guitar, guitar, synth), later joined by Mathieu Autin (drums, percussions), and Guillaume Léglise (guitar, synths) for setting up live performances. Seeing the combo on stage is an act of faith, a celebration of dark forces. Far from lazy live performances on Ableton, Vox Low is like an acid-house version of the Jesus & Mary Chain on stage and now, after a few EPs and remixes, they turn up on an insolently rock n' roll label, Born Bad Records. They stylishly surf between '60s rockabilly influences and cold, minimal techno from around Cologne, or Berlin's Zoologischer Garten Station. These children of the court of the Crimson King, climb onto the tables, and piss on the silverware and hold a superb black mass for a bunch of hippies high on mandrax and dressed in rags and sheepskins. Vox Low manages to set a "sauerkraut" Morricone-rock atmosphere of it's own, hypnotic and druggy. Krautrock with an inimitable '60s bass sound, a trippy discarnate voice combined with some Moe Tucker-style drumming. "You Are A Slave" is a punk, nihilist topic for a straightforward cold-as-a-razor-blade title. There are hits as well, such as "Something Is Wrong", their anthem for a jilted generation coming down from MDMA. A song like "Some Word Of Faith" places the record under the seal of the gospels, the holy scriptures, and Depeche Mode's Songs Of Faith And Devotion album (1993). Half muggy industrial, half leather rockabilly: like Frankie Goes To Hollywood covering Led Zeppelin. In "Rides Alone", Vox Low conjures up the suicided body of INXS' Michael Hutchence. With "Trapped On The Moon" and "Rejuvenation", the Parisians deliver a certain idea of modernity: a cardboard western feel à la Morricone, as goth as the Sisters Of Mercy, and VHS retro-futurism. Vox Low delivers a dark, poisonous, nihilist, and erudite piece of work for those who worship Primal Scream's Screamadelica (1991) and Gary Numan.