8. Mr. OizoLambs Anger
Lamb’s Anger got a bit dissed. I actually prefer Moustache (Half A Scissor), but it’s got some classics on it. When Lambs Anger came out me and my friends in Berlin just listened to it loads and loved it, and everyone else seemed to think it was a joke. It was just one of those things where you’re feeling like you’ve got to stick up for it.
He just does this thing of using a cheap form but managing to make something really expressive and weirdly catchy out of it. I think he just made it all in about two weeks on a laptop and just used presets, but there’s not many people that can do that. Most people go the opposite way, they have high concepts and use very expensive material and think of themselves as grandiose artists and they still manage to make stuff that doesn’t really translate, whereas Oizo’s got this slightly flippant anarchic streak that always really appeals to me.
For me, it’s not an album I listen to a lot, but if I want a burst of adrenaline then I’ll definitely pick that record up. Maybe he’s capable of more. I thought on Moustache (Half A Scissor) the production was pretty amazing – it sounds analogue and creamy and tasteful and some of the programming’s just wacky, in the best sense of the word. Just bold and inventive, nothing else like it, I don’t think. Really great riffs, great sequences, like ‘Gay Dentists’ – all of the tracks have got this identity, I just remember them in terms of development and arc and they’re so distinctive. He does have a really good command of note-writing and essentially that’s a skill that can be overlooked.
I live in the city of minimal techno and there’s not much in the way of sequencing going on to a lot of that music. I know it’s a different thing but don’t sneer at the power of the sequence!
