Electronicat: It's one French guy working electro-head backgrounds against old school rock'n'roll action, glam rock sleaze, and general over-the-top freak-out camp. I first heard this stuff at the now-defunct Weekend Records and Soap, which was co-owned by Magas, another electro guy with some rockabilly attitude. As something to walk off the street and into, it didn't sound half bad. The chances, though, of your wanting to bring it home with you? Slim. This, after all, is the sound of someone asking you to delight in the sheer dirty spazz of what he's doing-- an opportunity that nowadays only gets offered to noise acts with enough no-fun attitude to make the whole thing seem like "art." Strike two: The sort of camp, yowling rock'n'roll schtick so many horrible American acts fall in love with, the one we should have let drop well before Jon Spencer came around. Electronicat at least has the excuse of being French, which explains why this album contains a brief impersonation of Jerry Lewis instead of Jerry Lee Lewis.
His other excuse is the album is kinda fun. Its intentions are made clear by the grotty digital sound, which is basically the electronic equivalent of the four-track in the basement-- this weird laptop reversal where sounding too clean makes the whole thing sound awfully dirty. It's hard to think of a better context for all the just-for-fun old-rock quoting he does on here. When "Dans la Bois" kicks off with a psychdelic-Stones pastiche, low-rent French Jagger posing over low-rent guitar and machine stomp, it's not so difficult to get into. Same goes for the rockabilly swing on "Wap Doowop" and the fuzzed-out Bo Diddley beat on "Savage Cat", if not the modified Deep Purple riff on "Mummy Cat"; at best, they wind up doing the same thing Junior Senior did to Bob Dylan on one of their album tracks, revving up old tropes into some sleazy drum-machined present.
Still, an excuse is an excuse, and there comes the point where you realize you're chuckling at some of his jackaround tracks more than you're actually feeling them. There comes the point where you remember that Stereo Total could do plenty of this pastiche and make it sound a lot sharper, and there comes the point where you remember that you could get better sleazoid camp vibes off of the Cramps. There's some satisfying stomp-and-wail up in her-- and some lovable cut-ups on "The Smell of Danger", and some home-recording weirdism that could nearly slot into God Ween Satan-- but it's all going to need to get a lot better-developed if it's every going to fly.
