Generally speaking, the electro-noir music on Miss Kittin & The Hacker's First Album is minimalistic. Miss Kittin's vaguely nasal European voice deadpans naughty and ludicrous musings over The Hacker's programmed tunes. Although she is also an accomplished DJ, she eschews knob-twiddling (pun intended?) for the sake of NC-17-rated lyrics. She says things like, "She is very sexy like life on MTV," and "To be famous is so nice: suck my dick, kiss my ass." Perhaps she is drawing on her life experiences. After all, she is a former pole dancer, and one of the tracks is about one of her stripper friends.

Occasionally, the influences seem recent, as on "L'Homme Dans L'Ombre" whose introductory chords are lifted right out of Dune's "Million Miles Away From Home." Mostly, though, the music hearkens back to the 1980s with its antique synthesizers, making the album perfect for DJ Hell's International Deejay Gigolos label and its 80s-inspired line-up. First Album is replete with handclaps, New Order chord progressions, and staccato Kraftwerk bleeps--sometimes even all at once. Miss Kittin and The Hacker appear to attempting a resuscitation of the erotic cabaret begun twenty years earlier by Soft Cell.

This silly New Wave Euro-disco house is the sort of music I could imagine Dieter from Sprockets dancing to with his monkey.

RECOMMENDED TRACKS: "Frank Sinatra", "Stock Exchange", "L'Homme Dans L'Ombre"

By Shantell Powell
May 29, 2002