Miss Kittin - I Com

Miss Kittin
I Com
Astralwerks
Grade: A-

With her first solo album, Miss Kittin (aka, Caroline Herve) has preceded to rock the electronic DJ shit out of our indie rock asses. Delving further into the electronic music scene, I realize that I shouldn't have written it off a decade ago. With such a wide span of great music out there, Miss Kittin's I Com is clearly some of the hottest shit going.

Born in France, Miss Kittin got into electronic music in her home town of Grenoble at the precipice of the rave explosion circa 1990. Working in clubs and traveling to raves when possible, she began to the live the life. But it wasn't until 1994 that she started to get into mixing and DJing. Once she found she could hold her own and rock out just as hard as anyone else it opened up an entirely new life. A short time later she stopped her art schooling in France and became a full-time DJ. This lead to playing shows all over Europe and in the U.S. Her first recorded material ("Frank Sinatra," Champagne EP, Intimites EP) came with long time friend the Hacker on DJ Hell's International DJ Gigolo label. Miss Kittin came to further notice when she and the Hacker released Miss Kittin and the Hacker - The First Album on International DJ Gigolo in 2001. As a coincidence of circumstances, Felix Da Housecat was making his own waves in the U.S. and together they helped push "electro-clash" to notice. Having residencies all over Europe and a new home in Berlin, Miss Kittin knocked out I Com with producers Tobi Neumann and Thies Mynther this past year.

I Com starts off on "Professional Distortion" with rock undertones to a host of blips while Miss Kittin's vocals come across like the Waitresses. "Professional Distortion" is a straight-forward commentary on life as a nightlife mover, with lines like "I have to sing,I have to tease\\I have to kiss so many cheeks\\I got the flav, I got the tricks\\I have to put guests on the list." This is followed by one of the hottest song's on the record "Requiem For a Hit." Featuring Chicago-based L.A. Williams on vocals, the song follows the refrain of "I beat that bitch with a hit" over and over with Miss Kittin repeating it towards the end after a breakdown. The slow moving and sensuous "Happy Violentine" is next with Miss Kittin taking the lead on vocals. To totally change gears, Miss Kittin follows this with the psycho-electro-punk "Meet Sue Be She." Sounding like a track from Japan's Polysics, Miss Kittin rocks a song to her manager car style as "Meet Sue Be She" is Mitsubishi, "Sue Zoo Key" is Suzuki and "Be Aime Double You" is BMW. The take away point is that it's a fun song that pumps the adrenaline. "Kiss Factory" brings back the sexiness to I Com and reinforces Miss Kittin's own appeals. "Allergic" is a song I'm feeling right now as Miss Kittin's fighting off allergies to herself. The song starts a bit robotic but builds back the smoothness. In her own words, "Soundtrack of Now," programmed and performed by the Hacker, is a mainly instrumental tribute to Detroit. This song is probably the most 'techno' that you are going to find on the record. "Dub About Me" is a seven-minute voyage of slow tempo dribbles from Miss Kittin. Measuring scattered beats around with off-English French accents, "Clone Me" illustrates Miss Kittin's ability to bring up new wave sounds to contemporary listeners. As a treat for older listeners, Miss Kittin does a cover of Indochine's 1985 European Hit "3eme Sexe" (Third Sex). I'm not familiar with the original French version, but the song has some sweet elements but they aren't taken far enough. I Com closes with "I Come.com" and "Neukolln 2." "I Come.com" finds Miss Kittin muttering some technology babble that would make a tech-head wet with very minimal beats and blips underneath. Miss Kittin rocks out more traditional tempo electronics on "Neukolln 2."

As Miss Kittin's first adventure in soloism, I Com is a stunning musical product. As much disdain you may have for general electronic exploits, one cannot deny the magnetism of at least a majority of the tracks on I Com. I am sold to its power and I hope to find other items in parallel appealing forms.