I have discovered your blog today and I love it!! You make very beautifull things and your tutorials are very good. I will add your blog to my list. Congratulations for your works!!
"What if" is the biggest question surrounding this French duo. Hearing that phrase, "French duo," probably sets off a bunch of alarms. In the case of Burn Your Own Church, some of them are justified: A decade ago, Arnaud Rebotini and David "Siskid" Shaw set the French club scene ablaze with "Paris Acid City," a 12" single on Source Records that attracted the gaze of Output Records. You know Output's legacy better from Four Tet's early releases, or Fridge's early works, or maybe as the main distributor for the DFA's earliest singles. In short, Output used to matter and Black Strobe were a part of it.
But something happened after a string of early 12s. That something was that they, um, kept releasing singles. EPs and 7s and 12s and EPs and CD singles and on and on it went; they could've made a full-length by the time they got around to trying for Burn Your Own Church, but the anthems just kept coming anyway.
The trick with Black Strobe in their 2007 form is that they're no longer merely another French duo. Joined by Bastien Burger and Benjamin Beaulieu, Black Strobe are now a full-on band, no what ifs, ands or buts about it. The press release for this album talks about how the old French club sensibilities being combined with modern beat-driven rock and Norwegian death-metal; from the off, you can hear that darker side coming out. "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke" has the pulse of a thousand gothic club movie scenes, but its Red October radar wanders in and out of the steadily increasing percussion and electric guitars. If you're going to start off with a bang, this is a pretty good way of doing it.
The vocals enter on second track "Shining Bright Star." They're comically overdone and the music is driven techno-rock from the late 90s. That's a theme for this album, actually. Burn Your Own Church is sort of in the same vein as all those gothic industrial tributes featuring bands like Electric Hellfire Club or Bella Morte with a heavy dosage of Daft Punk thrown in for good measure. The results are both ridiculous and, almost beyond comprehension, ridiculously enjoyable. "Last Club on Earth," for real. Hard not to smile at apocalyptic visions like that, right?
If you don't know whether to love or hate a Nine Inch Nails impression like "Not What I Needed," that's understandable. It's tough to take anything vaguely gothic or industrial seriously these days and I recognize that Black Strobe is going to be a tough sell for someone who outgrew The Downward Spiral ten years ago. If you're wondering what's out there now though that reminds you both of your angst-ridden youth and your current obsession in all that bloghouse rot, this is definitely your album. No what ifs about that, either.
"Black Strobe - "Burn Your Own Church""
2 Comments -
come on, do some research. siskid's the live guitarist. ivan smagghe was the co-founder. he's since left. tard.
9:47 PM
I have discovered your blog today and I love it!! You make very beautifull things and your tutorials are very good. I will add your blog to my list. Congratulations for your works!!
12:47 AM