Albums

Paris Suit Yourself - My Main Shitstain

Dominic Valvona 07/02/2011

Rating: 4/5

Three-parts Bordeaux and one-part Arkansas, the voracious polygenesis band of restless miscreants, Paris Suit Yourself, rupture onto the scene, like a audio version of a Basquiat painting.

Yelping, mooning, raging and hollering; the shambling ragtag Malcolm Mclaren-esque pet project mixed with the child of the Jago ascetic troupe, stamps all over Nigerian Highlife, PIL, Einsturzende Neubauten and Ari-Up. Christ, this group's album has more reference points to its sound then is healthy; The Normal, Dead Kennedys, Cramps and TV on the Radio all strike a chord, as Mark.E.Smith looms large over the proceedings - it's no wonder that he invited these boho feisty artisans to support The Fall recently.

Front man Luvinsky Atche shuffles between both his native French tongue and English, as he tramples across racial-political and historical topics in fits of scattergun sloganism, or in a sometimes gravelly voiced mocking tone.

Cyclonic industrial drums and percussion dual with coat hanger sized trebly bass guitar strings, and agit-punk choppy riffs, constantly shifting as though starved of a Ritalin hit, with a bad case of ennui. PSY's pliable debut - the delightfully entitled My Main Shitstain - is either an elaborate post- post-modern gag, or a truly menacing proposition of musical schizoid protest.

There are many highlights and memorable tracks, including the rabid Felix da Housecat 80s piano breaks and Birthday Party blasting 'Graig Machinsky'', and the torrid Art of Noise gospel yeah-yeah of 'Lost My Girl'.
Serious subjects such as the ominous pained tribute to the tragic 'Sophie Scholl' - the unfortunate White Rose Movement and Munich student, whose non-aggressive protests against the war in Nazi Germany acquired her a one-way invitation to the guillotine - roll head first down a flight of stairs into a repetitive chorus line of “We are so blind”, harassing the listener.

Their manning-the barricades sabre-rattling theatrics have not sat easy with fellow, snotty, Parisians - the band re-located to Berlin - hence the snubbed moniker; perhaps in part to their rhetoric and use of, almost piss-taking, colourful and lurid language. PSY have produced 2011's most inexorable and polyglot triumphant album, one that anarchically wipes its feet all over the opposition with a raucous wink.

Release Date: 14th Feb