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BLACK LEOTARD FRONT, "CASUAL FRIDAY"
DFAThis week brings three new slabs of heavy DJ vinyl from DFA Records,with this one by Black Leotard Front sounding the most adventurous tomy ears. "Casual Friday" is a massive 15-minute groove that starts outas ingratiatingly slick metropolitan disco and ends up asingratiatingly slick deconstructed electro-funk from planet weird.Justlike last year's "Yeah" by LCD Soundsystem, "Casual Friday" puts all ofthe obnoxious stuff right up front, as if to scare off potentialsquares: world-weary whispered French narration with a mind-numbinglyrepetitive, despondent chorus of "Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour, bonjour,comment allez-vous." The track slowly shifts into more interestingterritories as a glassy synth peal announces the arrival of thejuiced-up funk combination of bass and guitar. The frankly laughablelyrics about putting on a dress and taking off an overcoat aremeaningless, merely an excuse to keep things focused on the glitterysurface of things, so that it comes as a shock when the vocals aresuddenly stretched into monstrous, echoing shrieks and a snarlingGerman voice pops into the mix. The track shifts through a series ofdistinctly Moroder-esque transformations, recalling a halcyon time whenrhythmic Krautrock synthesizer workouts were not in a vastly differentworld from mainstream NYC disco-sleaze. Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russomshould be familiar to DFA enthusiasts who sought out their fine "ElMonte" single, and together with artists Christian Holstad and DanielSchmidt comprise Black Leotard Front, a performance art dance troupe.Those who expected another synth-only, Tangerine Dream-esque affair maybe disappointed by the more dancefloor-friendly aspirations of "CasualFriday," but careful attention to track provide weird thrills aplenty,especially when the cheeky vocals are stripped away on the single'sinstrumental flip side, which in my humble opinion is vastly superiorto the vocal version.
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