Quentin Dupieux is probably better known for his infectious “Flat Beat” song. But I feel that a lot of this has the same weirdness going on with a greater deal of attention paid to minor details. Unfortunately, it is the broken nature of the music that can initially prove to be off putting. Even the names of the songs sort of indicate a certain joke, like having the title “The End” following the “intro”.
The beats are brought as far as they can be to the state of brokenness. It sort of speaks to Quentin’s abilities that he veers away from making this completely inaccessible. Plus, this works much better than “Lamb’s Anger” which wasn’t as well executed as an album, relying too heavily on dance clichés to get the point across.
Now there are certainly danceable moments with this album. “Drop Urge Need Elle” is absolutely insane. Being so insistent on a hyper-active environment (having so many samples and such a fast tempo) makes it one of the more memorable pieces on here. “Nazis” does more of a funk-infused grind to it.
Most of these tracks show off Quentin’s debt to funky electro. Thankfully here he avoids a lot of the pratfalls like those suffered by so many of the Ed Banger mates. He adds a great deal of personality to the proceedings through random surprises (like Half a Scissor blasting into a dance track halfway through) or the grooves displayed on (ee). Fun is heavily represented here.