Stereo Total
Baby Ouh!
(Kill Rock Stars)
Multi-lingual Frenchy Germans Stereo Total recently dropped their ninth full length, Baby Ouh!, to mixed reviews. The trash glam electro pop duo, Brezel Göring and Françoise Cactus, notoriously crafted 40 (that’s FOUR ZERO!) songs for this record, whittling it down to 17 baby-pop (dandy-fop for audiophiles) tracks, but the whittling could’ve kept going. There are several songs that don’t meet our expectations for this soop-airrr-great two-some. This isn’t to say Baby Ouh! won’t get your on your feet, but be prepared for some "I’m going for a drink" moments during their more obscure digressions.
Göring and Cactus are at their dance-y best on “Andy Warhol,” “No Controles,” “I Wanna Be A Mama,” the title track, “Violent Love,” and “Larmes de metal.” “Andy Warhol” opens with clips of the artist’s unaffected mutterings and are cleverly sewn into this reverent track and a simple chorus, “Andy Warhol” over and over make this joint an easy listen. The single-note synth beat on “No Controles” bears all the murky hand-stamps of a Euro-trash anthem in the Caribbean. Cactus croons the ingenious “I Wanna Be A Mama” with a brute garishness that penetrates. This is where Stereo Total shine: in lewd and groove-heavy contradiction.
“Baby Ouh!” goes all space-deco ambient for a spell before Göring’s soft accent rolls in and she coos her Oo and Oohs. The most mod-disco inspired track, “Larmes de metal” is a one-two punch: danceable and aggressive. A merry-go-round of a track, “Violent Love,” is performed in English a la Betty Boop and rivals “I Wanna Be A Mama” for the most pleasingly caustic.
Sadly dismissible tracks include the opener, “Hello Ladies,” “Wenn ich ein junge war,” “Tour de France,” which simply run into one another and don’t leave a mark one way or another. “Hello Ladies” feels like a test to see if we can stand the rest of the record. It’s not fair to do to Baby Ouh! as it paints an unfair picture of what you’re in for. It’s a case of bad track placement (i.e. if they insist on including this random bathroom attendant non-sequitur, how about in the last two thirds before the record winds down?) “Wenn ich ein junge war” is a speed-pop number that feels rushed and grates with kid-like high hat banging. Not a big fan of this new whistle movement (cute maybe the first time, but seriously does every song have to have a whistle hook?), “Tour de France” may not have had a chance from the get-go for this writer. In its defense, I can’t stop whistling as I type this.
Baby Ouh! has some rough edges but is otherwise a fun ride.
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