Lambs Anger

New dance hits from Mr Oizo

The French music producer Quentin Dupieux known to the wider audience as Mr Oizo (‘Monsieur Wah-zoh’) got famous all over the world in 1999 when his super popular hit Flat Beat was released. The audience’s favorite then became a yellow puppet named Flat Eric nodding his head to the music, the protagonist of the video to the track also involved in several TV commercials of Levi’s jeans. Despite Dupieux creating a lot more worthy tracks and releasing more than one album he has still not managed to draw the audience’s attention to any of his other works. Yet it is quite probable that the situation may change with the release of his third studio recording Lambs Anger as the new album proves to be rather an anticipated one after 2005’s Moustache (Half a Scissor) and offers a great deal of tracks pretending to become new hits. The dance record Lambs Anger will warm you up during the long winter nights and its best moments will definitely find themselves among the club audience’s favorites.

Light melodies and heavier compositions on Lambs Anger

Although Mr Oizo does not seem to say anything new on Lambs Anger adopting vocal parties, samples, electronic audio effects and various beats the tracks have resulted to be wonderfully fresh and contagious. Here one can find light unobtrusive melodies and heavier sullen compositions as well as very little of filler. The record opens with a short but promising track Hun on which a female voice tells us what we are about to hear in the next 44 minutes. Two compositions with the same title different only in numbers, Pourriture 2 and Pourriture 7 are similar in the respect of the samples used and rather a heavy beat and keyboard sounding, and Cut Dick has proved to be one of the album highlights due to amazing disco elements and appropriate sax inclusions. The remake of Rob Base song It Takes Two, Two Takes It featuring Carmen Castro is made in the old club music school which does not prevent it from coming handy on Lambs Anger. Bruce Willis Is Dead can be called one of the heaviest compositions as the title is repeated several times here building rather an oppressive atmosphere, while the single Positif could boast the simplicity of its components that actually made up Flat Beat, if it were not for the funny noises appearing in the middle of the song. The title track is declared as the work of the puppet Flat Eric himself which is nothing but Dupieux’s self-irony confirmed at the end of the composition when Eric is sent back to the closet. The producer’s new muse, a young performer Uffie joins him on Steroids, a great march and dance mixture, and the longest track Gay Dentists has once again become an example of successful samples and various hooks bunching. Another highlight is composition W, conquering with a rich power of artificial sounds and the album closer is a tense and penetrating Blind Concerto.

A bright and innovatory album

Quentin Dupieux has already recommended himself as quite a talented author masterfully working with the electronic genre, creating not only his own original pieces but also collaborating with other performers. During the last few years he has produced remixes for such artists as Jamelia, Cassius, Scissor Sisters and Calvin Harris. Besides last year Dupieux has played the role of a film director for the first time releasing film Steak. Although his Flat Eric will most probably remain the only association with his name for many Mr Oizo will definitely acquire many new admirers with the release of Lambs Anger. The album’s 17 tracks sound almost as one as the pause between them are practically absent. Yet this flow of various noises, beats, vocal samples and tunes can by no means be called monotonous as Mr Oizo virtuously adds new mood shadows to the compositions. Bright and innovatory Lambs Anger has become a great continuation of the Frenchman’s career and he definitely has a multitude of new ideas in store.