CD Reviews

Résumé: Selected + Mixed by Citizen Crew

Citizen

By NICK SYLVESTER | October 8, 2007

3.0 Stars

The French labels Kitsune, Ed Banger, and Institubes have clogged dance bins with aggro, monochromatic, twitchy filter metal — what amounts to mere DIY retreads of Daft Punk’s “Rollin’ and Scratchin’ ” or Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name.” So it’s easy to forget Citizen Records, Vitalic’s less showy, more catholic dance imprint. Résumé offers a parallel dimension where DJs favor brighter, fuller, songier tracks like John Ford Fonda’s call-and-response electroclash stomper “So Far Away.” It enjoys a refreshing kinship with techno before house in Carl Craig’s remix of Theo Parrish’s “Falling Up” and Petter’s “Untight,” and it’s even more refreshingly untortured over being up-to-the-moment current. (Sebastien Tellier’s down-tempo piano lounger, “La Ritournelle,” is from 2003; Switch’s ubiquitous “A Bit Patchy” is from 2005, itself a re-edit of Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache,” the ’73 beat sampled for countless hip-hop classics.) As to rhythm, Résumé doesn’t stray far from straight 4/4, building slowly to its more syncopated numbers. Think of it as a subtle criticism of France’s dominant strain of dance.

Related: Techno files, The other river rave, French tickler, More

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