Christine and the Queens, Redcar les Adorables Étoiles ★★★☆☆
In 2014, the beautiful electro pop anthem Tilted carried Christine and the Queens from Gallic curiosity to worldwide stardom. Their dazzling debut album Chaleur Humaine then reached quantity two within the French and UK charts in two language variations, whereas turning into the UK’s fastest-selling debut album of 2016.
This curious group turned out to be a theatrical solo artist, Héloïse Letissier, who adopted a masculine persona for second album Chris in 2018, and now returns with the trans male identification of Redcar for an album with the difficult billing Christine and the Queens presents Redcar les Adorables Étoiles (Prologue).
In a latest interview, the 34-year-old stated: “My journey with gender has all the time been tumultuous. It’s raging proper now.” As Redcar, Letissier’s most well-liked pronoun is he, although the very notion of masculine and female is totally different in French, the album’s dominant language.
I’ve nearly sufficient French to order a meal in a Parisian café however the fast-flowing lyrics Letissier pours out in multi-tracked cascades of tonally totally different voices can depart me bewildered. A translated lyric sheet is offered, and even should you don’t grasp each phrase, there isn’t a disguising the fraught and at instances explosive feelings of this unusual, atmospheric and deeply compelling work.
Primarily, it’s an operatic fantasy a few cosmic knight falling from the celebrities to erotically sacrifice themselves to a damsel in misery – a metaphor for gender transformation and self-acceptance. I feel. Many songs barely have verses and choruses, manifesting as mantras and electro funk grooves over which vocals pour forth like some stream-of-consciousness expurgation. Combien de Temps runs to over eight minutes, with Letissier firing out a tirade about how “from my songs I make oaths / From the magic doorways in direction of comprehension / However my solar is my mild / The melody is the primal ocean …” There’s something a few shocked Sir Lancelot, and a French pun linking a ship and a penis. It’s a lot to soak up.
Redcar les Lovely Étoiles was composed in a two-week burst of frenzied exercise, with Letissier writing a track a day alone in a Paris condo. You may actually sense that vitality on an album that has a type of relentless mania, with strident beats, wild vocals and melodies capturing off in each path. The sound is Nineteen Eighties electro gothic, with harsh, echoing drum machine snares and thick partitions of fizzing synths interweaved with squalls of distorted electrical guitar.
What is sort of absent, nonetheless, are the fragile rhythm patterns, liquid bass, open areas and smooth track building that introduced Letissier such crossover enchantment. There are glimmers of his facility for earworm melodies and nimble grooves, however they are usually overwhelmed by an air of bombastic stridency. The nimble Rien Dire lifts the album like a life-saving breath of recent air, and never coincidentally it’s the closest in sound and magnificence to his breakout hits.
Throughout this similar interval, Letissier has additionally been engaged on a extra business Redcar album in LA. The prologue feels like one thing he wanted to get out of his system. It’s definitely awe-inspiring, however within the quite ominous sense of a tsunami about to crash onto a dance flooring and sweep the lone dancer away. Neil McCormick
