City of Clowns

I wouldn’t have expected to really get into this one! Electronic music’s presence in my listening habits has definitely increased over the last several years, but it’s tended to be more in the avantgarde realm than the dance music realm, and I’ve never been all that interested in electroclash, so Marie Davidson’s persona and deadpan vocals on this record don’t do that much for me. But the production is another story, and if I’m being honest with myself, its appeal may be largely nostalgic, since it takes me back to the EBM and electro-industrial hits that soundtracked my club nights in the mid to late ’90s. Still, there’s plenty of producers out there copping those sounds without catching my ear the way the bangers on City of Clowns do, so I think there’s something special here. It’s not clear how the production duties are divvied up between Davidson, her partner Pierre Guerineau, and the Belgian duo Soulwax, so I’m looking forward to exploring more of her discography and seeing what other alchemies emerge.