So. We live in Toulouse, in the lovely southwest of France (if another friend of mine gets mugged between now and september i swear never to put "Toulouse" and "lovely" in the same sentence ever again) and every year there's this free festival taking place two week ends in a row in the beginning of July called "Les Siestes Electroniques" ("Electronic Naps"). I'm not a big fan of the event, mainly because it's poseurland and also because the line-up is usually clumsy. Anyway.

I went there with Lady Ladybug, because it was sunny and warm (but not too warm) and because we felt like taking a nap. Obviously we didn't get a chance to, we stumbled upon what seemed to be ALL of our acquaintances and when we finally found a spot to sit in and relax we didn't feel like taking a nap anymore. So we talked of how relationships suck sometimes –I can hardly talk about something else. That's when we stumbled upon the tall and slender Juan, who gave me this cd. It amazes me how he always manages to get free stuff at shows he didn't pay to attend. He told me he had seen Braille perform right before we arrived –he enjoyed it- and that he was given a copy of "Partir" for my reviewing pleasure. He asked me if he could keep it for a while in order to listen to it and I told him he could.

It's 12:42 am, I should be recovering from a wild night involving drugs, alcohol, girls and a Primal Scream show, instead I'm sitting in front of a dusty computer at my grand parents' trying not to notice my grandpa's decaying health. So I'm listening to "Partir" in between flower pot painting, old-school typewriting and black ink drawing.

It's a bit long to my taste but still enjoyable. I really like "Presente" featuring a girl with a cute voice singing "am I real? I'm disconnecting the way I feel" over and over again. She's cozily wrapped in blankets of computerized sound and the result is really good. I'm starting to know how IDM records work, "let's put this nice song in the beginning so we can just fuck shit up 'til the end of the record." I reckon I've got a badmouth but this is often true. "Player 1", for instance, isn't really convincing. Girl with soft cute voice comes back on "Rencontre", its harsh cutting & pasting creates an enjoyable, haunting feeling. "Apartamiento" may or may not sound good to some people. "Trapecio" features the same old girl with cute voice but now she's singing clumsy nonsense in intelligible French, in a "oh yeah I'm so detached I sound cool" way. Tsk. I like the way the saxophone part is manipulated on "Nudo," even though the blips in the back kinda ruin the classy feeling. "Recover" features unaltered saxophone parts and sounds like a bit less worrying Twin Peaks score. It's alright. "Wonderland ?" is a nice closer with people laughing and sighing while girl with cute voice sings again. I think you might be able to gently fall asleep while listening to it.

So, hey, this is a good record, better than most of the other IDM records I've listened to this year but still far from sounding fresh and new and really exciting. It's just good and considering the state of things in electronicaworld -IDM is so passé- this, in itself, is quite an achievement.

-Barbara H

/aug 1st 2004/