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DAT Politics ‘Wow Twist’ (2006) Genre: Electronic
Record Label: Ski-pp, Chicks on Speed
PIXEL SURGEON / Reviewer :Roshan Abraham
The Graffiti Research Lab in NY has perfected something called ‘LED Throwies’. As they describe it, they are “an inexpensive way to add color to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together.” What this amounts to is an easily accessible electromagnetic ‘graffiti’ that can be tossed around like rice at a wedding, or like the flickering panoply of pastel papers from a violently dashed piñata. On their website, they feature movies with casual citizens hurling them onto walls in effortless acts joy and irreverence, as each person makes the world that much more playful, polychromatic, day-glo and strange, coating the world around them with a bioluminescent epidermis of lights that hang like the glittering debris of a world more silly and daring than ours. I mention this because this is how the group DAT Politics sounds, and since they are the type of band whose idiosyncratic worlds easily exhaust the thesaurus of even the most ardent music reviewer, I thought a visual would help.
DAT Politics are a trio of musicians who create and perform entirely with laptops, based in Lille, France. They are also the best laptop ‘band’, if such a category even exists, in the world. Their reliance on endless performance, collaboration and constant experimentation gives the madly disparate elements at work in their music an irrational, and giddy cohesion. Always perverse, wicked and calculating, DAT Politics’ music is the sharp, precise, detached kind of frenetic electronica that, if executed by anyone else, would sound cold and academic. But, as evidenced in songs like 2003’s Pass Our Class—a memo from a college professor read straight through and turned into a bubble machine hued super-powered teenage girly rock cheerleading anthem—they are way more fun than that.
After 2003’s absolutely brilliant full-length Plugs Plus—an intensely sexy record, filled to brimming with sexy chantonesque hooks and fluorescent, polychromatic crescendos made for an art school party in the year 2320—DAT put out a second full-length in 2004 called Go Pets Go on the Chicks on Speed label. The record dove into pleasant ideas, flavors, colors and perceptions, many circling around the world of children. Whereas Plugs Plus was an unrestrained and unapologetic explosion of ideas, Go Pets Go entered fully rendered sonic villages and took the time to explore them; stretching them out and visiting every shivering blade of grass and speck of pollen floating through the air of their candy coated hills. Tracks like Bees are Bees for instance, took the task of exploring the tiny-ness, pleasantness and pure buzzing simplicity of visiting an array of colorful flowers all day, every day, forever.
Wow Twist, however, is a return to energetic, impatient, whiz-bang electronica, with an added sense of accessibility and easily digested melodies. This is easily the catchiest DAT Politics record—not that I’ve never had songs like Taut Bleu suck in my head before, but the densely layered, labyrinthine production of such tracks required way too much cerebral RAM to be looped endlessly in the brain on the subway or driving to work. Wow Twist, however, presents its quirky pop songs with no obstructions, road blocks or honey-hewed detours: this is DAT rocking the fuck out.
The opening Viper Eyes starts off with pulsating thumping rhythms of a punk song, and Gaetan emphatically screams lyrics that sound too awesome to be bound common sense: “Living dead are in the place! And they’re completely amazed! By the sound and the flashlights!” The chorus screams: “No, I don’t mind!”
On Turn my Brain off, the trio produce what is the closest they’ve ever come to a traditional pop song, in that the catchy lyrics actually relate simple, universal feelings and emotions. “T-t-t-t-today, I think I have enough now. So can you please, turn my brain off?” There’s even a bridge and everything! WTF, DAT? Because they always lay adjacent to a point rather than point to it, the track is more of a geek-punk exploration of what pop songs look like—as if the crayon colored trio fell into one after pushing too hard on the wand of a pixilated fairy—and, like the Rugrats or Muppet Babies of electronica, make a big awesome fucking mess of it while trying to figure out what it is.
My favorite song, Gravity, is a pop song that delivers lyrics that are neither nonsensical, nor entirely coded with meaning. Like all great pop songs, the lyrics have an ambiguous floss that poetically connects with the meanings that it happens to strike by accident. The chorus; “Learn something about gravity”, is delivered with a tone of loving, wise advice. It could refer to the process of humbling oneself, or moving on from a traumatic experience through humor, but it really shouldn’t have to mean anything for it to feel amazing. Lines like “you’re not so fast with them fast shoes!” are so awkward, cute, and defiant that they linger around emotional relevance without actually situating itself there: instead, we just laugh that ‘fast shoes’ could exist.
The band still boldly wear their most overtly lit signifiers like warm comfortable fur coats, using clunky technology as a recurring theme on tracks like the dorkily anthemic What’s DAT?, the surreal My Toshiba is Alive, and the repetitive, chanting siren song that is V.I.D.E.O. Tape, a speak and spell cheerleader chant in which the trio somehow spells the word ‘Video’ incorrectly for four minutes.
Clocking in at a tragically short 36 minutes, Wow Twist contains more energy than most bands deliver in a lifetime, exploring weirder angles and more foreign geometries than most mathematicians experience in pursuit of a degree, and more impish wonder than most daycare centers have the Prozac to handle. With this record, it’s clear that the trio aren’t just creating a sound that’s structurally complex, quirky, and unique, but that they’ve sharpened their process to a science. Their sound has developed around performance, interaction with their audience, and a love of what sounds do to people rather than just a love of sound. The result is one of the best pop records I’ve heard in a long time—if I play this record at a house party and no one dances, I’m kicking everyone out immediately and asking them how much it cost to put their soul and sense of humor in self-storage, so I can see about putting my disappointment with humanity there. You should do the same…
DAT Politics 'Wow Twist'
' It's been 6 manic albums in 6 hectic years for Lille based glitch-pop trio DAT Politics and 'Wow Twist' would appear to be one of their finest yet. There's not been a great deal of development in their sound - they competently manage to combine elements of punk, rNb and pop with some of the finest electronic programming around - however these tunes are expertly crafted for maximum effect i.e. being incredibly exciting and energetic as well as interesting to listen to.'
warprecord.com
DAT Politics Wow Twist
Released: April, 18, 2006 Record Label: Chicks on Speed
All Music Guide Reviewer : Heather Phares
Album Review
Operating on the principle that the most experimental thing an experimental electronic group can do is go pop, DAT Politics' Wow Twist doesn't just pop, it explodes with songs so bright, so immediate, and so weird that they're virtually fluorescent. Like their other labelmates on Chicks on Speed's self-titled label, DAT Politics excel at mischievous, nimble electronic pop that thumbs its nose at everything. On Wow Twist, they've never sounded cuter or more crazed; not to trivialize their music, but the album's skipping beats, old-school synths, and digital munchkin vocals conjure up images of incredibly cute, pixilated characters blowing each other to bits, or what Crazy Frog would sound like if he teamed up with Mouse on Mars (particularly on the delightful cyber-babble of "Dizzy Zip"). Indeed, there's a strongly childlike feel to Wow Twist, one that borrows from the giddy hyperactivity of Plone rather than the wistfully innocent stylings of Mzm or the beautifully decaying nostalgia of Boards of Canada. Oddly enough, the Day-Glo immediacy of tracks such as "Viper Eyes," "Turn My Brain Off," and "My Toshiba Is Alive" is so intensely cheery and manic that it often ends up sounding more deranged than some of DAT Politics' earlier, darker material. While Wow Twist seems like it should be in danger of becoming monotonous, the album's sheer liveliness -- and the occasional slow song like "Wow Signal" -- keeps things fresh. It's clear that DAT Politics had a lot of fun making this album, and that sense of fun translates to their listeners without feeling in-jokey. Wow Twist's highly concentrated cuteness and mischief might rub more serious-minded electronic music fans the wrong way, but it does serve as a welcome reminder that not all forward-thinking music has to be somber. And, at the very least, Wow Twist could double as an incredibly hip kids album. ~
DAT POLITICS - Wow Twist-COS
Boomkat.com
A bit like getting trapped in a 1980's arcade alongside troops of ADD-addled troubadours, DAT Politics have always been a sensory assault - with their sixth album in as many years a predictably riotous affair. Ensconced on the caffeine-wired Chicks On Speed Records, the Gaelic trio DAT have consistently pushed their laptop compositions beyond the realms of mere noise-mongering; preferring instead to ram raid their hard-disks for any remnants of melodic fortitude, before proceeding to splatter them all over your ears with abject glee. Taking in everything from widescreen sci-fi synths and unashamed rock operas, through to pin-pricktronica and 8-bit mayhem, 'Wow Twist' will certainly not to be everyone's taste - with a high tolerance to mayfly attention-spans a must. Far more palatable than the new-wave of circuit-abusers (much of ADAADAT/Wrong Music et al.), DAT Politics sound almost old-fashioned in their quest to actually feature songs amongst the digital mêlée, with opening track 'Viper Eyes' a case in point. Despite battering you senseless with a tirade of snotty punk gobbyness and all manner of car-boot sale beats+bleeps, 'Viper Eyes' nonetheless invests in a copper-bottomed melody that will be bouncing round your head for hours. Elsewhere, 'Roll' goes for c-h-o-p-p-e-d vocals and lurching digitalis, 'Dizzy Zip' takes a trip on a circuit-bound merry-go-round, whilst 'Gravity' is a fizzing pot of rabble-rousing snotiness. Westminster!
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DAT Politics ‘Wow Twist’ COS , 2006
tinymixtapes.com reviewer: filmore mescalito holmes
I guess they still don't have any Ritalin in Lille. This being the French trio's sixth album in as many years, they show no signs of slowing down their frantic pace and song construction. Wow Twist vocals are tweaked, split, reconstructed, parodied, and melted into the high-frequency-sound-dusted glitch pop instrumentals produced by three laptops side by side by side. One of the primary aspects of this album – according to the press release – is that it's the closest LP yet to capturing their live sound (why aren't there more live electronica releases anyway?). Having not yet seen them live, I couldn't say for certain. This sound definitely lends itself to being better in front of huge, distorting club speakers, and at that, DAT Politics' intensely silly music is for me a sometimes music. You will move when this is on, one way or another.
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Dat Politics | Wow Twist
OSRB Reviewer :Jason Gibson
Yesterday, I downloaded Dat Politics: Wow Twist from iTunes.
It’s experimental electronic that will either suck you into it, or make you run out of the room screaming. The mixing of nintendo sounds, high-pitched voices, beeps and blips makes it great in my humble opinion. The track “Turn my brain off” rocks my ass off. The entire album screams inspiration from Devo and other synth-pop groups of the 80s and today. I recommend you give it a listen if you like 80s and electro.
DATpolitics / Wow Twist / COS
UNCUT (UK)Reviewer: Stephen Dalton
Rating :*****
Infectious punktronica leapfrogs the Channel.
Behind the haute-couture minimalism of European electronica
lies a vast subculture of shouty keyboard anarchists who seemingly take Begian
faux-punk Plastique Bertrand's novelty new wave classic "ça planne pour moi" a
key text.
The french trio DAT politics certainly remain firmly on the pop-friendly side
of the fence with their sixth LP, which all but explodes at the seams with breakneck
electro-trash kiddy-punk. Such infantilised jabber is better suited to singles than wholes albums, but strong melodies and thoughtful arrangements lurl beneath
the lille-based trio's bratty yelps and tinny sound effects. Thus Wow Twist delivers
a sustained blast of bubblegum glitch-pop that is shamelessly synthetique but vivid, vital and exhilarating.
DAT politics " Wow Twist "
THE WIRE april 2006
French laptop trio DAT politics have double-clicked "the party" icon on their desktops and the results make for absurd, infectious fun. Wow Twist follows the trajectory set by their previous Chicks On Speed release Go Pets Go and is their most song oriented album to date. While some maybe bemeon the lack of DSP magic compared to early albums like 1999's Tracto Flirt, there's still enough sonic surprises to rough up the chromium gleam of their hook laden electropop whith his farty drum programs and vocal tracks digitally twisted into the weirdest of shape, this is some of the most paradoxically nostalgic/ futuristic dance music imaginable.
Shorty, deliciously irritating kiddy choruses are the order of the day, by Wow Twist brashness sounds so curious than even a beardy old grouch like me can't help but be seduced. Imagine la Düsseldorf crossed with Mouse On Mars and you're close.And If you absolutely insist on something more neaty, try the extraordinary
Video Tape which has the trio chewing over their soundsfiles like gum and blowing huge pink bubbles with them.
DAT POLITICS (8) 'Wow Twist' (Chicks On Speed)
ROCKSOUND May2006 (UK)
Wow! Twist ! Indeed! Then Smile from ear to ear at some of the most
gleefully deranged pop music i'll ever experience.
DAT politics are a trio of Gallic laptop poppers that sound like Bis covering Kraftwerk
on helium after listening to eight hours of bonkers J-Pop, Kinda, Beautiffully! Absurdly! Brilliant!
(MD)
DAT Politics Wow Twist [Chicks on Speed; 2006]
Rating: 7.8
PITCHFORK Reviewer : Mark Richardson, May 22, 2006
On its first three records this French laptop gang used pop as a marker while actually indulging only rarely. Pop was something DAT Politics' 8-bit electro orbited around, poked at, made fun of, and kept under their pillows, but it was never embraced as an identity. They inched at melody like a high school kid testing a ledge, seeing how close they could get without actually going over. And whenever they almost fell-- such as "Pie" on 2002's Plugs Plus-- they cut the pleasure with just enough annoying lo-fi noise to keep people who don't wish they lived inside a Nintendo game at arm's length.
No longer. Here on their sixth full-length, DAT Politics have finally decided that writing and singing catchy tunes won't actually lead to a fatal case of the cooties. The palette hasn't changed appreciably; though they presumably use late-model computers, the noises aren't much different from, say, your local Fan Club Orchestra's Gameboy jamz. So the sound of the thing is still going to rub many (most?) people the wrong way. But in terms of songwriting, they play it straight, and ultimately demonstrate a knack for memorable tunes.
One day, some joker with an acoustic guitar will cover one of these tracks. We'll ask why he or she is singing something called "V.I.D.E.O. Tape" and shouting out the letters like a Bay City Roller, but we won't question the integrity of the song. In pop music, certain gestures are common and essential, like salt in cooking, and DAT Politics have learned to love the heavy hand. The "ooo-eee-ooo-ooo" backing vocals bumping against the chorus of "Turn My Brain Off" are the oldest and easiest trick in the book, and they're wonderful. Gaetan Collet offers a pitiful and charming old school rap on "What's DAT"; the pumping three-chord progression in "Gravity" is a modified version of the one Depeche Mode used in "Just Can't Get Enough"; there's even a ballad for god's sake, "Fake Friend", with a voice processed to sound on the verge of breaking even while the chipmunks cooing in the background are all smiles.
All of which is all good news for the more casual DAT Politics fan, those without the patience to pick through the earlier records. On the other hand, the band will probably lose a few people with this record's likeability. This scene, involving Chicks on Speed, the Blechtum axis, and select members of Tigerbeat6, has developed a cult drawn to a boundary-testing aesthetic. Music that is ugly and out of balance can still effectively communicate; depending on what you're trying to get across, something that goes down like two aspirin without water might be just the thing. But DAT Politics have left such concerns behind, at least for the time being, to bop around and shout and let the playful sense of fun take over completely.
Artist: Dat Politics Album: Wow Twist Label: COS Review date: May. 7, 2006
Dusted Reviews Reviewer : Josie Clowney
The choice of a favorite band is a game with rules (and, of course, strategy). Not all musical acts are eligible; in fact most are not.
The first rule is hard and fast: the band must have released more than one album; many releases is better. Second, the band must be be a band, not an individual; a truly collaborative group scores more points. Finally, a band cannot be a “favorite band” type of band for only one person; cultural relevance and discussability are paramount. Under these rules, Pearl Jam could be a favorite band, but Temple of the Dog could not.
Dat Politics, in fact, is a “favorite band” type of band. They have released six full-length albums, they are a semi-permanent trio with no obvious “leader,” and they have buzz. Like many favorite bands, they are loved for creating a bizarre yet utterly accessible style that they have toyed with over the course of many albums and which has evolved while remaining indelibly Dat Politics. Their current label, Chicks on Speed, describes this sound as “some epileptic hyper-synthetic acid music at a hyperactive schizophrenic birthday party for fluorescent animals,” i.e. wacky laptopping with “small” (sped up or pitch-shifted) vocals. Their recent video for “This Way” from 2004’s Go Pets Go features a person in a dinosaur suit marching up mountains drawn with Paintbrush and clapping along to the beat.
Dat Politics have also become less experimental over time. With Wow Twist, they have perhaps crossed the fuzzy boundary between “marginally avant-garde” and “suitable for extremely hip tweens.” While Claude Pailliot and Gaetan Collet’s vocals remain as small and charming as ever, the beats are cheesier, the rhythms straighter and more danceable.
This new direction yields mixed results. The addictive “Viper Eyes” is fake scratching and punchy, staccato vox, “Ah, ah we still have mixed FEEL-ings aBOUT this” twitters the kitten version of Gaetan (the trio’s female member). The vocal cut-ups in “Gravity” sound like a pinball machine and are joined by arpeggiated, mewed “la la la”-ing. Charmingly, the song “V.I.D.E.O. Tape” features repetitive chanting that goes “V-I-D-O T-A-P-E” (the group is French but sings in English). “Turn my Brain Off,” on the other hand, sounds like an electroclash version of the Strokes.
A lot of teen movies are about a nerdy girl who blossoms and beats the Queen Bee in the quest for the perfect boy. The Ugly Duckling presumably ends up most desirable because of her quirks. Dat Politics used to be more like the her, masking delightfulness in odd. Wow Twist plays Queen Bee – sexy from the get-go, all surface.
Geiger.dk About DAT politics Live in Arrhus -‘Wow Twist Tour’
DAT Politics introduced this evenings audience to something that
made you think of the dada’ism in the 1920’s. They shared the
same misbelief in authorities and use of chance and they
introduced the audience in this artistic disciplin, which,
even though it faded out in Paris and New York in 1924, seems to
have found its way to Lille, where DAT Politics is based. The
groups take on the aesthetic agenda in their local environment,
which is a wide perspective of electronica, as well as the
accumulating mainstream culture, is evident in their music. With
this a a starting point DP moved into a genre which one moment could
remind you of MTV-fashion punk, the next moment of
Berlin-electroclash with added 80’s New Order kitsch and a third
moment these two mixed together and set the frame around a
brain-twisting avantgarde IDM. With this obvious disrespect towards
the already established DP carried through this evenings concert.
One of the biggest musical qualities of the group were also
tonight impossible not to notice: the meticulous contarst between
the rhythm sections pumping and compressed 4/4 beat and the
melodies and harmonies endless portamento, which creates this
floating and fragile structure. Much contrast were there also
between the groups serious and self-important expression towards
the dadaistic tendencies in the music. The self-importantness were
not bigger though, than they throughout the concert synchronically
bowed the heads in a punk-like style.
Often you felt carried away by the monotony of the repetitions of
the rhythm, the same way as we know from rave music, but the
climax were always delayed because of a sudden deconstruction of
the rhythm or a significantly high effort from the toy instruments.
This “trick” seemed provoking, but also very refreshing.
Especially the deconstruction of established genres (punk,
electro, new wave, techno etc.) created a oppurtunity for new
interpretations of the expression, and that was probably why a many
people in the audience started something like a pogo dance.
Musically references could be Devo, Chicks On Speed and last but
not least and clearest the more unknown Plastic Bertrand. These
also represents the different languages DP used: french. English and
German.
Once again we experienced problems with the sound on Fabriken.
This resulted in too low vocals making it impossible to hear what
the lyrics said or the short announcements between the songs. A
annoying detail in a very good concert.
GAFFA (DK)
DAT POLITICS -WOW TWIST-
*A more poppy and energetic but still addictive cd from the
french trio*
On the sixth album DP have moved closer to popmusic. This
development, has also been possible to track on their previous
releases, and here comes the final climax. The songs on Wow Twist
are mostly catchy electro-pop, and most of them contains vocals sung
by the trio itself, and the structures of the songs are more
traditional songs structures. But DP are still far from normal.
They still carry a unique sound, and this time the music is even
more unbeaten and over frenetic than before – actually to such a
degree that you can get stressed from listening to it. And it
doesn’t held that the vocals are lightly hysteric and pitched in
speed, so they have a chip and chap sense to them.
This makes the records seem a bit less appealing than earlier
releases, but after a few listening through the record, the catchy
melodies, which is the epitaph of DPs music, will have seduced you,
and Wow twist reveals itself as yet another homer/bulls eye from
the French trio.
FINETUNES.NET
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Dat Politics
Wow Twist
[ChicksOnSpeed Reco...]
Electronic | Electronica
Mit "Wow Twist" liefert das Laptop-Trio aus Nordfrankreich ein geniales Elektro-Power-Pop-Album ab - quietschig und verstörend zugleich!
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waterproofsuit
DAT Politics - What's Dat?
Awesome as the lyrics are on both of the Doom tracks, the title of this post sports words from this track. I thought DAT Politics' first album was a great amalgamism of fun and experimentalism and I remember telling KT that it would be awesome to see where they'd take their sound after the first album but these sort of groups never last long. Well shut the fuck up, Matt of the past. Just two years later and they've released their second album Wow Twist and I swear to you it is one of the most insanely odd and FUN records I've listened to. A lot of the tracks sound like punk singers put in a microwave with a box of crayons and synthesizers but this track sounds like some wonderful blend of The Knife and old Daft Punk. I'm not sure it's possible to dislike this song.
DAT Politics - Wow Twist
www.analogpleasures.com
We just got the new album of DAT Politics in our mailbox and we love it! Wow twist features very energetic comedy pop/punk-electronica. In the same time very catchy and accessible as weird and ingenious. Well, we can only advise to check out the album yourself. Soundsamples can be found @ datpolitics.com.
This album rocks in the true sense of the word!
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"Viper Eyes" DAT Politics (Chicks On Speed Records)
Associated Press -Reviewer : Matthew Perpetua.
With this boppy, shouty, and almost obnoxiously energetic track, the French laptop quartet DAT Politics reimagine punk rock as music created by and for hyperactive small children.
Subtlety is the first thing thrown out the window in this song, as keyboards bounce like pre-schoolers on trampolines, the beat sounds as though it being bashed out with enormous animated mallets, and the vocals blare as if sung through gigantic megaphones. This may try the patience of some listeners, but those looking to revisit the feeling of being loading up on sugar and watching Saturday morning cartoons will find a lot to love in this wacky number.
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DAT politics wow twist
nihil-distortion –
Tigerbeat / COS regulars Dat Politics return with an extremely silly album indeed - which is, of course, the reason we all love them. Shouty mentalist electro pop with a seemingly infinite amount of energy and tongue-in-cheek appeal. Imagine The Bash Street Kids let loose in a recording studio with bagfuls of acid (getting caned, but not by Teacher this time - ho ho!)....
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Music Reviews IN THE MIX (Australia)
DAT Politics - Wow Twist , May 10, 2006. 22:57 by evilchris2
(Chicks On Speed Records/Inertia)
French laptop art-pop trio DAT Politics have certainly carved out a distinctively eccentric presence in the leftfield electronic music sphere, with a prolific work ethic which has seen them release six albums in as many years of existence as a band. This third album through Chicks On Speed Records follows on the heels of 2004’s well-received ‘Go Pets Go’ and sees them turning their sound more towards melodic electro pop songs than ever before, whilst also drawing upon the sorts of hyperactive energy levels generated by their live show.
Opening track ‘Viper Eyes’ offers a first taste of this new pop-driven direction, with stabbing bright electro synths and sampled child-like high-pitched voices repeatedly saying "No, I, don’t, mind" weaving in and out over the electronics before Gaetan and Claude’s distorted shouty vocals slam into the foreground, the entire track veering towards punky electro-thrash that comes across like some crazy but at the same time somehow completely logical fusion of Atari Teenage Riot and Alvin & The Chipmunks – imagine Alec Empire and Co. hopped up on red cordial rather than political ire, and you’re perhaps getting close. After this energetic opening, ‘Turn My Brain Off’ comes across like the mutant spawn of Devo and Plastic Bertrand, Claude taking the vocal spotlight for a knowingly cheesy slice of eighties-inflected pop that could have crawled straight off the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, the distorted punky shouted vocals perfectly counterpointed by tongue-in-cheek backing harmonies that might even have some thinking of a velocity-obsessed A-ha.
‘What’s DAT’ pushes the emphasis back towards buzzing analogue synth-laden electro, crisp breakers’ handclaps and distorted synth squeals powering their way between Gaetan’s sing-song pitched-up vocals as cutesy synth bleeps play back and forth in a moment that smoothly combines deliberately naïve melodies with an intricately detailed production approach, while ‘Gravity’ shows Claude once again taking the vocal helm for a punky slice of electro-pop that beautifully illustrates the trio’s fearsomely capable grasp of the power of catchy hooks – indeed amidst all of the hyperactivity and deliberately controlled chaos
adlog.gif ¨ of this record, it’s one quality that coherently holds this collection together. ‘My Toshiba Is Alive’ offers up a tense, nervous dash through pounding 4/4 electro-house beats and buzzing bass synths, Claude providing a surreal power-pop tribute to his humble laptop ("It has teeth, a mouth and eyes / So it should be something") as squealing toy-like electronic bleeps flutter back and forth, while ‘Roll’ provides an intriguing hyper-percussive fusion of relentless beats and grinding electronics that winds G-funk esque synth lines around shouted imitations of the kind of "act now and get the free set of steak knives" hucksterism generated by late-night infomercials, although while it’s certainly an interesting diversion, by the end of the track you’re not really left with any clues as to whether the DATs are particularly for or against the above. ‘Fake Friend’ meanwhile opts for a downtempo pop approach, Claude unleashing his ire at the superficial fraudster of the title (" If I had a plastic gun on me / I would blow your head simply") over delicate organ-like analogue synths and gentle beatbox rhythms in a moment that personally called up associations with the likes of Felix Kubin’s creaky electro-pop.
‘Wow Twist’ is an excellent sixth album from DAT Politics that shows them adeptly shifting their emphasis towards melodic electro power-pop, and indeed while there are many moments here that seem like they simply shouldn’t work in theory, it’s this fearsome grasp of catchy pop hooks that holds it all together beautifully (and much more effectively for example than their label heads’ recent ‘Press The Space Bar’ full-length). With a vocal approach that sits up there in the chipmunk-style frequency range for much of this album, ‘Wow Twist’ clearly isn’t going to be for everyone’s ears, but those with a taste for the hyperactive side of absurdity will find pop genius lurking amidst the artfully-controlled chaos here. Perhaps their best full-length to date.
DAT Politics - Wow Twist label:: Chicks On Speed Records- CD
gullbuy review
¨Wow Twist is the fourth full length by the French electronic quartet DAT Politics. The songs are tuneful over-the-top rock and roll electronic tracks set up to disorientate.
*Viper Eyes starts off the CD with male/female vocal interplay on the chorus "no I don't mind."
*Turn My Brain Off has lots of the ingredients that characterize the bands sound: male lead vocals, female background vocals that sound sped up, Ramones (or Beach Boys) styled wordless vocal harmonies, and hyper music.
*Gravity has the video game sound the band also uses a lot. Gravity is one of my faves. It sounds Japanese, like a J-pop song by Hi-Posi.
*Roll is centered upon a sped-up sales pitch that sounds like a munchkin from Wizard Of Oz selling us Ginzu knives instead of welcoming Dorothy to the Lollypop Guild. Like most of the other songs on this record, Roll grows on you if you listen to it a few times.
Wow Twist is a good record from a band that must be great live. They could easily reproduce their sound live, and the high energy feel of the record would translate well to a club.
---Carl
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Muze tm
DAT politics - Wow Twist
French electro-punk trio DAT Politics share a similar approach to making music with their labelmates Chicks On Speed: take pop music in all of its various and disparate forms and, with one leg firmly planted in the art world, run it through the merciless grinder of contemporary technology. What emerges is simultaneously delightful and grating, silly and challenging, punk and bubblegum. "Turn My Brain Off" recalls everything from Tony Basil and Bow Wow Wow to Squarepusher, as it gleefully bites the hook from Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi," while "V.I.D.E.O. Tape" is a dance party (seriously, check out the crowd) thrown in honor of that now-vintage visual medium. Manic, glitchy, comically harsh, and musically quick-witted, this is the new face of art-rock.
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DAT POLITICS
WOW TWIST
Reviewer :Dr Van. Eddie Deluxe
Happy morning tree hugger
The sea monsters that live under my bed....
Body:
Hooorah what merryness is this? An ocitopus in my bedroom? Eating my bed!!! Why you little! *pokes it with a broom* oh great eat my broom why don't you >< right well there's just one thing to do with you! And that's to flush you down the loo! Although i doubt that the flush mechanism could cope with it.
Good day to you! And you..and you..and you. What a most splendid of profiles, it did make one merry and dance for many an hour with a cowbut now Im backand one must saaaay Ive got a lovely bunch of coconuts, dida-lee-dee-dee, there they are all standing in a row. Big ones small ones some as big as your headuhhh and the rest of it. LOOK OUT!!! FLYING COCNUUUAHHHHHHH!!!!!! E-gad! Oh fate doth mock me in the most profound manor that it would think it reasonable to let a coconut thrust itself upon my head.
Fate.dearest fate, I considered thee a friend upon many a fine occasion*looks in a handily placed mirror hanging on a palm tree*.Why of all theI mea you couldnt just.I have a coconut imbedded in my head!! For goodness sake; FATE! You a miserable snail raping, rose bush molesting, obese walrus looking, devious ham sandwich you!!!. Noooo!! Never shall I forget this humiliation! I shall strike ye down with a stale baguette!..andAhh well, no harm done.for now. Ill just get my monkey Reginald to eat it.
Reginald eat the coconut..GYAAAHHH!!!! NOOO!! Not my face!!! Ahhhh!!!!!!!!!! Cruelty has betrothed yet another mark upon my fair body, woe! Woe! Woe! For I shall never see the world through the same eyes again! And thats only because Reginald ran off with them and replaced them with 2 prickly pears! AS IF I wouldnt notice?!!? Gyah frazzanizzle pumpernickel.
Sorry madam! One was being an outrageous idiot! A festering scar on the bosom of society! So sorry I meant to say I was being an ass. Neigh! A dumbass, no wait, wait! I got it! I was being uhhhh ra? Ran? Rand? Ran-randy? NOOO! I meant random. *coughs up a furball* yeah thats what I meant. Sorry Im rambling, me thought your profile was top class old chap! By jingo thats the spirit. We could have done with your sort during the war, absolutely top notch old bean, bravo!
In conclusion, your music provided my bones with such funky jiiving rhythm and chicken that i married a tree. I can't thank you enough!
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Epitonic.com
Dat Politics fuse the playfulness of Atari 2600's "Pitfall" video game music with the electronic experimentation of Pita, Mouse on Mars, and Oval. Jump into their twisted world.
Kenji Siratori Author of Blood electric
“DAT politics Upload the brain universe that compressed the acidHUMANIX infectious disease of a Chemical=anthropoid to biocapturism corpse
Feti=streaming circuit of this abolition world”
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DAT Politics WOW TWIST COS
VICE _ Reviewer : David Cotner
The sixth album from this French bunch reveals yet another layer of pop-synth craziness beneath the previous layers crazy-poppiness. It’s as if the mice led away from the Pied piper just hung out over the hill and had a fun little party. It’s also the perfect soundtrack for that time you overdid it on the sherry during which you plucked your eyebrows so that you wound up looking like the bald chick from Star Trek : The Motion Picture.
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