For many readers of this site, LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver is one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the new year, but that level of anticipation almost makes you forget the humble origins of James Murphy's electro-rock alter ego. His DFA-branded production prowess aside, it was uncertain at the time if LCD Soundsystem's 2002 12-inch "Losing My Edge" was meant to be anything more than a one-off amusement for a seemingly limited demographic of disco fans who can appreciate a good Captain Beefheart joke.
That LCD proved to be so much more bodes well for the future of No Bra-- aka the duo of German expat Susanne Oberbeck and Dale Cornish-- who've been making BBC DJs like Pete Tong snicker with their single "Munchausen". The song is essentially the London art-school answer to "Losing My Edge"'s Williamsburg smack down, upgrading a monologue to a two-hander: Over a tinker-toy techno beat, Oberbeck and Cornish play two self-absorbed socialites trying to outdo each other with increasingly exaggerated accounts of their performance-art exploits, sexual transgressions, and squalid artist sustenance. (Cornish: "I lived without electricity for three years." Oberbeck: "Really? I used to share a squat with Nina Hagen in Camden and she used to make pizza out of dead cats.") But the best joke is couched in the title itself: When Cornish brags "I like listening to Karlheinz Munchausen," No Bra effectively expose the most reprehensible breed of scenester-- the chronic name-dropper who gets the names wrong.
If "Munchausen" is both clever and ridiculous enough to withstand repeat listens-- if nothing else, the song will forever change the way you say the word "Really?"-- it's also the most incongruous entry point to a strange, sometimes disturbing album that's certainly not played for laughs. Save for the odd acoustic anomaly, Dance and Walk sounds just like something you'd find front-racked at the Rough Trade record shop in 1978 alongside the Normal and Cabaret Voltaire-- primitive, melody-deficient synth-punk whose sinister pulse and anarchic, amateurish quality often gave the impression of on-the-spot composition, as if the players were still figuring out how electronic technology could be applied to punk's devolutionary principles. In other words, music that's as creepily compelling as it is unapproachably aloof.
It's ironic that No Bra have found a vocal fan in Tong, since their brand of buzzing, clanging anti-pop muzik is more tailored to clearing rooms than filling dancefloors. But the austere presentation makes for an ideal complement to Oberbeck's manly mumble-- only when placed next to Cornish's even deeper deadpan does Oberbeck's voice betray a hint of her femininity. As the front cover shot of a topless Oberbeck with a blond Hitler moustache makes obvious, gender is a major talking/mocking point here-- opener "Doherfuckher" at first suggests a distinctly Frogs-like freak-folk crudity ("do her, fuck her…she takes it up the ass"), but acquires a subversive new dimension when Oberbeck changes the command part way to "do him, fuck him"; and on the chilling "X Sauna", Oberbeck presents her own peculiar take on modern romance, with a striking central lyric-- "I broke his heart/ I broke his neck"-- that's more involving than the typical camp of "Motorcockhead" (wherein Cornish declares, "You make me feel like a woman/ You make me feel dead") or the binary "no bra!"/"green halter top!" debate on (the rather awesomely titled) "No Woman No Crime". In their most intriguing turns, No Bra proffer an androgyny that's achieved not through each sex appropriating the characteristics of the other, but for each sex to abscond with those definitive characteristics altogether. Glum is the new glam.
