Album review

Mr Oizo

Lambs Anger

Paris 

01/01/2009 - 

Ever since his chart-topping single Flat Beat back in 1999, Mr Oizo has played the chameleon, constantly changing his image. Now, after releasing two ultra-experimental albums and a critically-panned film, Steak, the electro maverick has wrong-footed us all again. His latest album, Lambs Anger, is a light, upbeat work packed with ready-made dance hits destined for the mainstream.

Quentin Dupieux - better known as Mr Oizo - is a committed crazy, not so much in terms of his mental health, but in terms of his leftfield electronica. Ever since his debut album Analog Worms Attack (2000), the electro iconoclast has insisted on forging his own unique style based on saturated sounds, multi-layered collages and rudimentary rhythm boxes. Mr Oizo's sonic experimentation has verged on the autistic at times and thus successfully kept the mainstream public at arm's length. No-one does off the-wall as well as Mr Oizo. Remember his notorious yellow glove puppet Flat Eric puffing away on a sausage in the video clip to Flat Beat? There's no denying that Quentin Dupieux has done everything in his power not to become popular - and his scheming has paid off up to now!

At first glance, Mr Oizo's third album, Lambs Anger, seems to have been fashioned in the same 'underground' mode. The album cover references a cult image from Luis Buñuel's surrealist film Un chien andalou, depicting poor old Flat Eric about to have his eyeball slashed with a razor blade. But Mr Oizo is a master in the art of turning up where he is least expected. And this third album finds him up to his old tricks again! Lambs Anger is, without a shadow of a doubt, Mr Oizo's most accessible album to date and it is guaranteed to get the moral club majority up on the dancefloor.

Dupieux has not sold his soul in the making of this album, however, and he remains true to his iconoclastic style. Tracks such as Hun and Z may feature less in the way of experimental layers and sound distortions, but Lambs Anger also includes 'back to the future' funky-techno pieces such as Cut Dick and full-on rave power anthems such as Bruce Willis is Dead and the excellent Gay Dentist. The French electro maverick is at the height of his game - and the closest he has ever come to the mainstream public - on Two Takes It. Frankly, the latter would not sound out of place on an album by Kylie or Madonna. This is, of course, intended as a compliment - although we're not sure Mr Oizo himself would take it that way!

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 Listen to an extract from Positif

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Ludovic  Basque

Translation : Julie  Street