CD - Citizen
On the border separating con men from geniuses there's room for the Teenage Bad Girl, a French duo composed of Guillaume Manbell and Greg Kazubski, described by some critics as a sort of runaway clone of Daft Punk, Aphex Twin and the Stooges. Sure, the video shot for 'Cocotte' is very impressive with its elegant black and white reminiscent of Hitchcock and the surrealist masters, Elvis and Grey's Anatomy. Electro nouvelle vague mixed with new dancefloor-conceptual tensions of artists like Scissors Sisters, Digitalism, Justice and Modeselektor, appropriately sponsored by someone whose hunches prove very often correct: Vitalic. Very abstruse elaborations, something only the French can do, which mix contradictory spices to season this musical salad with, for example, space rock, melodies, techno-hysteria and electroclash and sprinkling everything with histrionic dissonances. A contradictory but brilliant album in its attempt to be fashionable but different, or more like 'original at all costs', a game this duo plays perfectly, with very unusual and communicative tracks that reach their highest point with the remixes of Boys Noize and Hystereo.
Aurelio Cianciotta