I saw the Konki Duet play right here in Toulouse (i was mugged again last week so i will definitely stop saying that it's a lovely town) in july. It was a nice show in a big room with wood on the floor. They were dressed in pyjamas and my friend Dave Rebel still has to forget Kumi's nightgown. It was a nice cosy night. The Konki duet is three girls from Paris making soft delicate and definitely cute music. This cuteness is in the same time the strength and the weakness of "Il fait tout gris," their debut album for the French label Active Suspension.

It's about being girls i guess, the way virgin suicides is about being a 13 years old. Cute and painfully bitter, dreamy and haunting. I like it when it sounds eerie like "Melody" and i don't like it as much when it sounds like children's scary wolf tales ("on dort mieux quand il pleut"). sometimes it sounds mecanic like a steel robot ("slow sex," paradoxically) sometimes it sounds sad and beautiful ("tu vas partir sans moi") and then it sounds grown up and strong ("il fait tout gris," a cover of Visage's "Fade to Grey"). I really like "Hokago," sung in japanese by Kumi, with a nice guitar arpeggio. It's basically an electric guitar, soft keyboards and a violin or a trumpet with lovely voices on top. I don't really like "Cindy" which is supposed to be a pop song i guess, a bit too bare for me. On the whole Il fait tout gris is a really nice album, as short as a dream and much easier to deal with.

-Barbara H

/sept 15th 2004/