|
 |
Chicks On Speed & The No-HeadsPress The Space Bar COS/Inertia I think I am a fan of Chicks On Speed. I was never inspired to get last year's '99 Cents', but consider 'Will Save Us All' (2000) essential for any party or housework binge: perhaps therein lies the conundrum. What a set of electro crackers it contained - the covers Euro Trash Girl and Warm Leatherette, which are summarily gazumped by the sterling Kaltes Klares Wasser - gimmicky, guilty treasures. With 'Press The Space Bar' the three women - one German, one Australian, one American - demonstrate that they are serious about music, and much else besides. The album reveals that they are not merely punk art pranksters, but have emerged from the empty premise of electroclash engaged with ideas about the modern world and a readiness to express them. This is not to say the album doesn't contain trashy clashes of keyboards and guitars or half sung vacuous phrasing. The opener The Household Song is billed as a feminist celebration of housebound choice, whereas it comes across as a parodic iteration of new right zeal, the blank delivery undermining the empowered statement to a boppy beat. There is a lot better to come, however. The 'Chicks collaborate this time with Barcelona group The No-Heads and producer Cristian Vogel. The multinational band play with more intention-seeking styles, as well as electro, such as the hardcore sound of Class War, with it's wasteland verse delivering comment on the poverty or perversion of everyday life, then coming to life in the "1,2, 3, 4, class war!" chorus. And the no-wave wonderment of History Will Outlive Us - a faux dominatrix rant over a sparse beat and wash of sound. Brilliant. Chicks on Speed, gladly, cannot be placed, and will not be easy listening. Punk squawks flip back to the disinterested, disembodied voices and continue to explore between the cold, bent electro sounds, and the gutteral rhythms of mouth and machine as in Culture Vulture Part Two. The album is edgy, with a whole lot of vocal techniques and sounds from buzzing B-52s groovy keys and ascending melodies to atonal guitar noise, often in the same song - like Ten Thousand Years. The soothing synth of electro-house wasteland in Madalyn Albrights Answer eventually pulls a refrain out of apparently random phrasing: "we think the price is right". Hilarious! They may not be playing guitars, but they have the No Heads to do that, and they all work themselves into a pretty happening ensemble on quite a few occasions, as in the vibey Mitte Bitte and Fuzzy Nipple. Electronic noises sound like punk instruments, experimental sound swishes around and Yoko Ono is referenced, but there are still some prance dancing opportunities. I never quite trust Chicks On Speed, but who cares? 'Press The Space Bar' is messy and impulsive, and sounds like their most unselfconscious release, a manky whole which keeps revealing its jewelled parts.  |
|
The latest issue available now!     |
All content copyright dB Magazine