The first thing you should note about Sexe bourgeois is how the track titles hang together to form a single maybe-sweet/maybe-dark sentence. This would seem to imply a couple of things. First, that what we have here is a suite. Second, that the subject of that suite has something to do with love. The first suspicion is easily confirmed—the individual tracks do indeed work together, sharing sounds and ideas, and generally forming a cogent whole. The second, however, is a bit more ambiguous. If this record is about love, it’s not the top-40 boyfriend/girlfriend bubblegum variety. No, this thing is about something much darker, mysterious, and altogether more interesting.
The tone is set from the start, with distant furtive bits of melody flitting through a cavernous soundscape—like a spectral orchestra tuning up in a subway station. And it remains a dark ride throughout. The tempos are steady, sometimes even brisk, but never lively, and the musical ideas tend toward the mournful. Even the flashes of humor (and there are several including a visit from a Russian--or maybe Japanese, it’s hard to tell--munchkin in track three) range from wry to sardonic.
Not that this is a gloomy record. Sure it might be a meditation on alienation and insanity, and sure there are passages that would seem to conjure up the noose and the razor—but that doesn’t mean that it has no spring in its step. No indeed--look beyond the shadows and you’ll see a record bursting with energy and ideas. There are operatic vocals, and ominous strings, turntable-y glitches, industrial groans, sampled moans, exotic woodwinds, and beats both propulsive and oppressive. And disparate though these elements may be, they are arranged with subtlety and nuance—always to bring about the maximum emotional impact.
And it’s this combination of emotion and cool calculation that provides the album’s chief charm. Deep in the core of Sexe bourgeois there indeed beats a bleeding gothic heart, but upstairs is the dispassionate brain of a scientist. To wit: there’s a brief episode in the second track, in which a little riff comes on the scene. It’s a quaint thing—and amidst the turmoil surrounding it, even a bit comic. But moments later it’s transformed into the accompaniment for a singularly dark vocal exercise. Now that’s cool. That’s collected. That’s—in all senses of the word—composed. This is not music that wallows in emotion, so much as presents it, considers it, holds it up to the light and examines it. In a way, it’s the perfect blend of romanticism and cynicism. What more could you desire?
Dave Keifer
