Ms Kittin’s roots in the electroclash scene of the late 90s can still be heard all over her latest release, the Batbox album. Track after track of lo-fi, crunching electro sounds, with everything amped to 11, makes for an engaging listen. Kittin, along with co-producer Pascal Gabriel, orchestrates a minimal collection of sounds to an attention grabbing whole. There’s considerable space for every grain of bitcrushed and distorted noise to breathe.
Standout track, ‘Barefoot Tonight’s features a wordless vocal hook over a fine two note bass riff. ‘Wash N Dry’ could almost be Massive Attack with a bit more grunt. ‘Machine Joy’ blends 80s electro-funk with more industrial timbres while ‘Playmate Of The Century’ gives a Euro-disco edge to the distorted 909 rhythms. The inventiveness of sounds in the bass register are continually engaging and drive the music across the dancefloors it is designed for. Miss Kittin has an ear for a melodic hook with memorable choruses across the album. The real downside though, is the quality of the lyrics which range from the generally banal (e.g. “There is a place/On the planet/Where I can lean/Where I can rest/It’s in your arms/On your chest’s from ‘Grace’) to the plain ludicrous (“The sun is high/I’m going outside/Vampires are asleep/Witches are taking over” from opener ‘Kittin Is High’). Yes, the music is made for fairly hedonistic purposes but, if you are going to expend the amount of energy writing lyrics that has been spent here, avoiding cliches is a good starting point. However, if you can overlook (overhear?) what’s actually being said, there’s large amounts of energy, infectiousness and drive here ready to put a smile on your sweating body.
Adrian Elmer
