Electronicat - Saturation [Astra Solaria - 2024]Electronic rock? Electronic roll? However you'd like to categorize it, Electronicat's Saturation sees this French artist (aka Fred Bigot) continuing his journey to bring together noise, pop, rock, and easy listening into one vibrant, electronic soup, fit for modern robotic consumption. Mixing comfortability with surprising and jarring gruffer elements, the album keeps the listener on their toes and awaiting the next curveball to come. Refreshing to hear, Saturation comes at a perfect time when the Northern Hemisphere is starting to come out of its cold slumber and for that brief period when we forget what birds sounded like, Electronicat can start our days off right. Like the Jetson's version of Norman Greenbaum, Saturation's opener, "Marlène Pearl" brings us to the "Spirit in the Sky," playing very closely to the tune that made the other part of our common musical lexicon. The heaviest hitter on the album, the opening 12 minutes of side A draw the listener in with a repetitive loop of crispy electronic rock (so to speak). Dropping noisy squalls and squeals in at unexpected times helps to break up this long run time and provides an opportunity to reacquaint oneself with the underlying song phrasing. "Arthur Sunset" closes out the side a little less urgently, and the synth line and drum programming continue the sense of familiarity established previously. The flip side of Saturation challenges expectations by starting on the noisy front before returning to its "rock" roots on the title track. More straight-forward than the previous two pieces, "Saturation" is a synth and guitar track overlain with Fred's vocals. "Désire Tout" follows suit with the more standard construction, although this hits more of a pop vein. Side B will continue the more "traditional" route with fun songs all differing slightly in approach, but built with similar instrumentation and vocals. That is until the album's closer, "Reflets Cheveux," which is as close to an acoustic number as we can get (I mean, it's called ELECTRONICAT, after all), and provides a nice, thoughtful outro.
Saturation is two halves that come together to make a complete whole. While A and B share commonalities, they differ in structure and form enough to make each side its own beast, and Electronicat exploits both approaches very well. While the noisier stabs feel a bit out of place, they don't take away from the overall enjoyment of their associated tracks and the interesting, electronic take on (what seems to me) 60's and 70's music is given ample time to shine on its own. And although the opener hints as very long, repetitive songs, the second side removes this fear and keeps everything trim and lively. Overall, Saturation is very enjoyable and each song manages to make its statement without being too, uh, saturated. For more info    Paul Casey
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