The axiom write-what-you-know is revered as tried and true, and falling
in thrall to the wisdom of its ways, on her first proper longplayer I
Com, is Caroline Hervé, AKA International Deejay superstar Miss Kittin,
the crown'd heroine of the elecktro-revival's electrocash-in movement. And, on
opening, inspired by such, Hervé sings about, uh, being a
superstar international DJ. Calling her "act," both on stage and in the
fake-and-shake/ meeting-people-is-easy world of the music-biz, an
artifice of "Professional Distortion," Hervé rails against the notions
of professionalism — putting on the show that the crowd expects, smiling
and nodding politely when introduced to unending "important" people —
she sees as merely suppressions of the artist's individualism and
personality, all one great ruse in which the goal is to get to the
point where you can "pretend to pretend," keeping perspective as you
"perform" your way through waters swimming with sharks. If, to you,
this reads like yet another famous person whining, well, then, you're
clearly one of the pricks this Kittin's kicking against on I Com, Hervé
rebelling against those who would reduce her to mere
flavor-of-the-month hype, a rebellion that is, let's face it, far
preferable to those who make the mistake of buying their myth. And
whilst I Com's not always, musically, no-filler, as gesture, it's
killer. Baring the inscription "I heard someone saying 'there should
not be a "Miss Kittin" section in record stores, but a "featuring Miss
Kittin" one'," the album shows Hervé knows that, thus far, her role has
been more ornamental than archly artistic. But, given this opportunity,
her own record remakes her as renaissance woman, an electronique
enthusiast not beholden to the shtick she's been stuck with. Oft
ditching the deadpan dead-girl-vox for enthusiastic yelping, Hervé rocks
a range of elecktro acktion, from COS-styled chaos-sister
anti-capitalist anthemicism ("Meet Sue Be She"), to the vintage-kitted
old-skoolist Hacker-reunion ("Soundtrack of Now"), to tite microhouse
click-and-crackle shuffle ("Allergic"), to a torch song in which her
sweet singing is set to a backing-track whose off-the-beat beats and
ghostly digital-crackles draw echo'd influence from the dense
pr'ductions of electro-dub boffins ("Dub About Me"). Whilst detractors
have mark'd her down for not being a musician in her "career" thus far,
as DJ and vocalist becoming an artist, Hervé has selective taste and the
ability to stylistically wander. Which is something you can't say about
those retro-electro artists so beholden to their authentic archaic
equipment that they've hemmed themselves into a hell of unchanging
uniformity, such uniform lust the forgotten past of a sex-Kittin
ditching the nurse's uniform for a debut dalliance dressed in her own
wardrobe. So stick that in your fashion shoot.
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