Mr. Oizo
Lamb’s Anger

REVIEW

Mr. Oizo, pronounced WAH-ZO, like the French word for “bird,” gained fame with the accidental international überhit “Flat Beat” and his Jim Henson, Levi-Strauss-slinging alter ego Flat Eric, but his new album “Lamb’s Anger” signals a dismantling of that identity.

In the album’s opening track “Hun,” Oizo halts rolling synths and Eddie Van Halen’s guitar line from Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (apparently electro D.A.N.C.E.R’s must pay homage to the King of Pop) to reintroduce himself: “Bonjour. This is me again. Mr. Oizo. You are about to hear a collection of recorded stuff. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are just OK. Turn off the light. Read a book. You’re ready.”

Oizo’s admission is an artifice. Though a few of the 17 tracks in “Lamb’s Anger” go nowhere, most are highly danceable, impressive compositions whose energetic, fast-paced sequencing keeps asses on the floor.

Though Mr. Oizo ditches the pseudo-IDM techno experimentalism of his watershed debut “Analog Worms Attack” and “Moustache (Half a Scissor),” which were literally “house” albums (electronica for homes and headphones), “Lamb’s Anger” is still undeniably the work of Quentin Dupieux’s kitsch-catchall.

This transition to French house and electro is not to suggest that Oizo’s new material is dumbed down – quite the contrary, “Lamb’s Anger” is a highly academic history lesson in popular dance music.

“Bruce Willis is Dead” spoofs the first techno song to ever place in the Billboard Top 100, L.A. Style’s 1991 rave classic, “James Brown is Dead.”

“Two Takes It” takes “It Takes Two,” Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s hyper-sampled 1988 hip-hop hit, inverting the comrade-cheese of the original and fromage covers by Lil’ Romeo and Korn into an even more funky disco mis-take on the track, featuring vocal work by Carmen Castro.

Of course it ain’t no fun unless the homies get some: Ed Banger Records labelmate, the Miami-via-Paris vocodo-rapper Uffie, guests stars on highlight “Steroids,” providing vulgar braggadocio over Saint Esmeralda-style handclaps.

VERDICT

Justice isn’t the only Ed Bangers to deliver glitched-out, crisp cuts. Mr. Oizo’s been doing it for more than a decade, with his newest “Lamb’s Anger”‘s absurdist-bent expanding the nearly tired electro-template.