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THE MUSIC FROM THE FASHION WEEK: ISSUE #3
(George V)
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The 24 tracks compiled on this two-CD set are taken, as the title states, from music that accompanied the showing of several fall/winter 2003/04 designer collections, mostly in Europe (Milan, London, Paris). Inevitably, perhaps, the punkish selections recall the work of the Velvet Underground (the first line-up, with Nico singing), which was all about appearance (and appearances); there’s even a new version of "Venus in Furs" by Trash Palace. Paris taste does loom large here, and the Lovers’ "La dégustation" recalls — tongue firmly in cheek — the sexual vignette in Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin’s "Je t’aime (moi non plus)." Yet even the Velvety songs (found mostly on the first CD, including a particularly Nico-like "Stock Exchange" by Miss Kittin and the Hacker) feel witty rather than dark, and far too ironic (and light in tone) to elicit the slightest melancholy. And they fit fully with the majority of the music, which is disco, though not of a texture likely to be heard in most US clubs. The house-music cuts hurt less than American house; the Euro tracks move faster than what Americans think of as Euro. There’s much more sleaze — the slow, creamy rhythm typified by Kylie Minogue’s "Slow" — than in a US set; and Parisian lounge, with its pliant beats and droll vocals, plays a lead role. Still, from Leandro Gamez’s "Videoconferencia" and Ginger Ale’s "Happy House" to Vive la Fête’s "Nuit blanche," Leroy Hanghofer’s "Bathroom Boogie," Lupo & Ceccarini’s trance-ish, extremely un-African "Africanism," Markus Guenter’s "Regensburg," and Paul Fryer’s "Home Truths," the rhythms flow, shimmer, and reverberate, now fast, now less so, as willful and changeable as the whims of fashion — and just as delightful to anticipate, use, and recycle.
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