Tag: Hologram Teen

women who kick ass by William Ruben Helms

whypeopledance · PRÉMIÈRE: Agnès AOKKY – Les Poissons-Chats (Hologram Teen’s Ottawa Disco Dub Remix)

 

Agnés Aokky is a French-born singer/songwriter and DJ — and as a songwriter, Aokky doesn’t spare puns or self-mockery to express the rapid changes of her emotions. The French artist has worked with a number of acclaimed indie and underground producers including Maxime Komori and Computer Truck. Nah Like, another up-and-coming producer recently released a remix of  “Rose Bonbon Baby,” which appeared on the Manifesto XXI compilation Open Source.

ManifestoXXI · Agnès Aokky – Rose Bonbon Baby (Nah Like Edit)

Earlier this year, the emerging French artist released “Les Poissons Chats,” a slow-burning and trippy track featuring several different musical sections, centered around twinkling keys, soaring strings, wobbling, wah-wah pedaled guitar, and Aokky’s brooding yet cooed vocals. Thematically, the song finds its narrator remembering and rehashing moments fueled —  and typically forgotten or fucked up — by alcohol.

Recently, Stereolab’s Morgane Lhote, best known as Hologram Teen released a shimmering disco dub remix centered around a motorik groove, shimmering synth arpeggios, subtly African polyrhythm, twinkling keys and atmospheric electronics. And while being dance floor friendly, the track possesses a lysergic air.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born and raised in Paris, the currently Los Angeles-based keyboardist, singer/songwriter and electronic music artist Morgane Lhote has had quite an impressive musical career, which includes stints in several different locales throughout the years. When Lhote was 20, she moved to London where she spent 12 — and during that period in the UK, between 1995-2001, Lhote was a member of Stereolab contributing on several of the band’s most beloved and critically applauded efforts, including Dots and Loops and Emperor Tomato Ketchup.  From 2002-2004, Lhote was a member of The Projects and she followed that project with a Garden, a side project featuring members of Simian Mobile Disco, before she started her own solo recording project, Hologram Teen.

Citing an incredibly diverse array of influences including MF DOOM, Francois De Roubaix, The GZA, Judee Sill, ABBA, John Carpenter, Goblin, Gene Clark, E.L.O., Harpers Bizarre, King Tubby, Michel Legrand, Hot Chip, Supertramp, Luke Vibert, Martha and the Muffins, Soft Machine, Suzanne Ciani, Greg Kurstin and Chic, Lhote has described her latest project, Hologram Teen as “electronic music that’s playful and groovy (mostly influenced by disco and Italian horror soundtracks) with loads of diverse samples. This is a soundtrack to a movie where John Carpenter and Boris Karloff hang out at Studio 54 with German zombies dancing to ‘Thriller’ in the background.” She’s also jokingly described her sound as being “. . . like Fabio Frizzi meets Grandmaster Flash.”

Small, renowned label Deep Distance Records, a sister imprint of The Great Pop Supplement Records released Lhote’s most recent 7 inch “Post-Apocalyptecakes”/”Tracksuit Minotaur” earlier this month. “Tracksuit Minotaur” pairs layers of glimmering, undulating synths reminiscent of Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk‘s “Trans Europe Express” and John Carpenter soundtracks, skittering and stuttering drum programming, ominously swirling electronics and horror movie samples to craft a song that’s tense, danceable and sweepingly cinematic — while evoking dancing your cares away in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world. “Post-Apocalypteacakes,” featuring Buddy Cop pairs a sinuous bass line reminiscent of Chic, skittering drum programming, layers of undulating synths and horror movie samples and industrial clang and clatter to craft a song that sounds equally inspired by Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk,  LCD Soundsystem‘s 45:33, and Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer.”

Lhote specializes in what may arguably be some of the most unique electronic music I’ve heard in some time — it’s relentlessly difficult to pigeonhole into any particular subgenre and it meshes different genres and periods in an effortless and seamless fashion.