Paris-based record label Kitsuné are releasing the fifth in their series of compilations, promoting the work of such prodigies of electro MIA, Autokratz and Alan Braxe. The Parisian music scene is pretty wonderful at the moment, and, as you may have noticed from the way I can’t resist slipping in a bit of vocabulaire Francais in every review, I have a deep affection for it. So you may think I’m biased when I say that this compilation is GREAT. But it is.
Big Face, described by the label as ‘some nutters from Glasgow’, Cazals and my old friends Does It Offend You, Yeah? all grace us with their musical presence, and the princes and princesses of cutesy keyboards CSS themselves get in there with a remix of Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya’s Fuck Friend. I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the Silverlink vs Kicks Like A Mule remix of MIA’s XR2, but perhaps that’s just because I like the original so much that I felt it didn’t need manipulating. And this is the only – very minor – disappointment of Kitsune Maison Five to my ears. The Teenagers are inevitably heading skywards this year, as are our very own Nottingham-based Late Of The Pier, and their second single, Broken, is brought to the fore with Fairy Lights’ fantastic remix of Earl Samuel Dust’s charmingly vivacious vocals. Alan Braxe, co-creator of the now decade-old Music Sounds Better With You (remember that one?) also contributes a delectable track; in my opinion, his departure from Stardust has done nothing but good, and Addicted truly lives up to its name – it cannot be played only once. A thumping, adrenaline-fuelled beat ascends into a climactic eruption of zombie-like strobes of sound. Indeed, with regards to his former musical collaborators, the music really sounds better without you. Autokratz present a morsel of hearty rave goodness in Pardon Garcon; it isn’t a new sound, but it’s as hard, dark and satisfying as a bar of Bournville. Expect an album imminently.
The compilation has a spontaneous but natural development to it – it’s not just an array of random electro thrown haphazardly together. Creativity and consideration has evidently been imbued in this nocturnal dream of dance music, and French consideration at that. Oh, monsieur!
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