Doudou Malicious - French Recipes

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  • Samuel Johnson may have been right in saying it's difficult to be bored with London, but it sure can be depressing. And with the economy particularly decimated by the global financial crisis, the need for hedonistic escape is strong. French-born Doudou Malicious, AKA Edduoard Darracq, voluntarily calls the city home, and since 2005 he's done his part by holding monthly Multi Vitamins parties, banging out his take on the resilient minimal that continues to command much of London's clubland. On five of the seven tracks of French Recipes Darracq is joined by collaborators, and the result is an easily digested debut LP pitched midway between home and club. Darracq delights in rich sonic minutiae, and French Recipes abounds in pings and whirrs loosely and lovingly patched together. All manner of stylistic variants are explored, from dour techno-pop to jittery Twerk-funk, with bizarre juxtapositions occurring often within the same track. Both "What I Will Do Without Her" and "A Musical Afternoon," for example, explore Tristano-esque classical house hybrids, with varying success. The latter skillfully warps piano and strings into mournful and jerky house—like Murcof meeting Dinky—yet the former is schizophrenically confused, lurching clumsily between Clayderman muzak and tinny hip-hop passages. Opener "Boudouloulou" is a delight, however. The vocals are pleasingly miserable a la Thom Yorke and the oompah rhythm suitably downbeat. Sebastian Russell assists with "Eliminer les Prejugers," wherein passages of French drone over ricocheting springs and machine-parts, while the title track—albeit more straightforward and functional—possesses personality too. A bleak preach-apella with Sounds4Peace closes out the album with an A-Z lecture on precisely why the world is so presently fucked, and it offers a fine summation of what Malicious—and the rest of us—is up against. Luckily, depression rarely sounds so subtly captivating.
  • Tracklist
      01. Doudou Malicious & Palorise - Boudouloulou 02. Doudou Malicious - French Recipe 03. Doudou Malicious & Sebastian Russell - Eliminer les Prejugers 04. Doudou Malicious & Noisetoy - What I Will Do Without Her 05. Doudou Malicious - A Musical Afternoon feat. Aaron Chan & Julien Boulier 06. Doudou Malicious - Reality Is Sometimes Hard 07. Doudou Malicious & Sounds4peace - Evolution
RA