Black Strobe is an electroclash group formed in Paris in 1997 by producer Arnaud Rebotini and DJ Ivan Smagghe.
Black Strobe now releases his new album Godforsaken Roads – containing ten tracks, including the latest singles: Going Back Home and Broken Phone Blues.
The record confirms Rebotini’s rock sensibility and debt to the great American tradition of songwriting, with songs touching on the classic themes of the blues – the randomness of life, the very weight of existence and the strong emotions that run just below the surface (love, lust, loneliness…)
He plunges into this world of the bayou, prison and the devil with real passion and the voice of crooner often compared to Iggy Pop or Nick Cave.
The contemporary western feel of Rebotini’s work, both melancholic and polished, came to the notice of Quentin Tarantino – who used Black Strobe’s cover version of I’m A Man for the trailer of Django Unchained.
We had a listen:
‘Broken Phone Blues’ is like playing classic rock ‘n’ roll from the bottom of an asphalt lake.
Yet there are real moments of clarity, brightness and the jewel-like fire here too.
The bass-baritone vocal is, of course, slurred like a serf on barbiturates – and the pace wallows more than a bloat of pygmy hippos – but this is self-assured and extraordinarily efficient.
“Folsom Prison Blues” shines – just like anthracite does. It shines with a steel eye. It has a dark, dark heart.
Yet ‘Swamp Fever’ is lighter. Like heading into a breeze.
It is never quite as accommodating as it could be … every foot-slog is difficult – but this is as dainty and playful as you get on this album.
It is a light-delight when compared to the bruising purpleness of the other tracks.
The petroleum seep is evident once again on ‘Dumped Boogie’ but this one feels space-agey. As if Gary Numan had suddenly come into Sun Records to create himself a new outlaw image – then press it onto vinyl.
At least ‘Promised Moon’ has juddering guitars and a real riff. And then the max-vocal reverb is pasted onto this like hastily slapped wallpaper.
This has a nice boogie and a regular rhythm. With small patterns of light that whoosh up like flying saucers.
These cat-gutter blues songs cut deeper than a cinquedea – and are as muddy as an alligator crawl. But – although the songs here are slippery and coagulant – they never lack coherence or cleverness.
@neilmach © 2014
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/BlackStrobe.Official
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