Singles

Agoria - Baboul Hair Cuttin'

Ben Gilbert 30/11/2006

Rating: 5/5

If Richie Hatwon likes you, you're doing something right in techno. That's the privileged position Sebastian Devaud found himself after Agoria's debut 'Blossom,' and the Gui Borratto-remixed curtain raiser 'Baboul Hair Cuttin' from the follow-up "The Green Armchair" looks set to be part of another set that wins yet more plaudits. But it's something far more melodic, gloomy and subtle, with its heavily mashed bass and thick and nasty backdrops slammed into menacing filtered vocals, providing a juxtaposition of a sort of a welcoming polish in the reverberations, despite the way guest spot Scalde seems to say "don't take it off" as if back-pedalling on undressing a particularly unattractive one night stand.

As it progresses through the hints of lyrical disquiet, the vocals and melody lose some of the dirty edges and it almost softens into an enduring doe eyed homage to a lascivious girl ["no matter who she miss, she pulls them at a kiss"] with the tinge of affection garrotted by the jealousy in the building tangent, before the track re-emanates into the stylishly mulched bass and diminutive wordless spoken echoes more eerily. It then towers towards the inevitable rich and booming crescendo of the finale, abrasive competing melodies providing sympathetic background to the preliminary vocal contradictions.

The B sides aren't too shabby either: a suitably revamped slow churning Radio Slave mix of the track has an after the party feel; a solid electro techno haemorrhaging of distorted Ellen Allien and Apparat glitching swagger in both meets a more organic invigorating Daft Punk esque vocal take from Scalde in the second, which is the original album cut. Very memorable stuff.

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