BOULDER dDASH — Alien Folk Trash

For months, I stayed far far away from French music. In the last couple of weeks, I caught up with a few of the musicians from the country of cheese and wine that as a thief as president (second only to the presidente del consiglio Silvio Berlusconi). Davide Balula and M83 released great albums, it is less the case with BOULDER dDASH, although it remains quite enjoyable.

Behind BOULDER dDASH is Jean-Baptiste Hanak, one half of dDamage, an avant-rock band. They certainly have good musical tastes since Tha Blue Herb’s Sell our soul (review here) features in their current playlist. Apparently Hanak had been working for quite a while on BD (he is said to have written ...200 songs) and was left with no other solution than release a full album. Its title got me all excited: Alien folk trash. Too bad it ain’t folk nor trash. Alien, it certainly is...

Lo-fi is a often used term, but this album certainly belongs to the genre, one way or another. Although a lot of different sounds are intertwined in each songs, it’s undeniable that Alien folk trash is underproduced. Not a bad thing since it was probably what Hanak had in mind in the first place. More importantly,  it fits the songs in a way that should prevent people from saying that the lo-fi side comes from the lack of ability of the musician. The album covers a wide array of style: from pure pop song to IDM to drill’n’bass to new wave to slocore to dance. This could be a bad thing for the continuity of the album, but Hanak avoids the problem thanks to his constantly playful approach to the songs he created. Oddly enough, the problem might lie in this diverse yet continuous side. One constant on Alien folk trash is the distorted sound, either in the beats, the keys, the guitars or the vocals. The problem is that it sounds very artificial and gets boring after a while.

Some people have instantly fell in love with BOULDER dDASH, others consider it as a gigantic piece of shit. I’m no man of extreme myself. Alien folk trash is pleasant but becomes dull in the long run. However it is an oddity that might be worth checking out. Included on the CD is a free MP3 album. I haven’t listened to it yet, this might actually say more than the whole review.