- UK techno meets Midori Takada.
- The sales notes on a certain vinyl retailer's website could have cheekily billed Benoit B's Vague À L'Âme as "UK techno meets Midori Takada!" It was only a matter of time before '80s Japanese experimental artists would inspire dance music this directly, such has been the YouTube-driven second act of artists such as Takada, Yasuaki Shimizu and Hiroshi Yoshimura. Benoit B's dip into this realm has been uncommonly sophisticated. In the last couple years, the French producer, who runs the record label Banlieue, has been ventilating his chord-smothered house with gestures to non-Western musical styles. But since 2017's Japonaiserie, his last EP, he's harvested better results by drawing studiously from Japan's composer pioneers.
Given the label, Wisdom Teeth, and the flashes of electro—"Kimono" and the title track—the unusual mood is notable. Instead of dread, there's whimsy. "Gyvenimo Tėkmė"'s bass notes yawn underneath the Lithuanian vocalist Dália's spoken word to almost comical effect. You can hear laughter and babbling amid "Vague À L'Âme"'s light aquarium funk. The EP's distinctive drum textures—dry, delicate, sharp—are another delight. The cymbals and tambourines on "Gyvenimo Tekme" are satisfyingly tart.
Some of "Ice Valley"'s shakers and glassy percussion deliver pleasantly unexpected chills, like someone slipping an ice cube down your back on a hot day. The track, with its forlorn, sub-zero shimmers, sounds like a piece originally written for organ in the Fortress Of Solitude. Vague À L'Âme's high standards take a dent on "Kimono," whose naive melody (not to mention the title) is too on-the-nose. But let it slide, because the rest of this is killer.
TracklistA1 Vague À L'Âme
A2 Gyvenimo Tėkmė feat. Dália
B1 Ice Valley
B2 Kimono