Monolith Cocktail Blog

PREMIERE: Dominic Valvona
PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Clancy

Theoreme ‘Les Gifles Du Pariétal’
Taken from the upcoming Les Artisans album, released 3^rd December on Maple Death Records.

Filtering down into the chthonian catacombs below the city of Lyon, the mechanics of the German new wave and hypnotizing synthesized sounds of that city’s 80s/90s Northern African raï scene make a sonic bed for the monologues and lucid voiced songs of Maissa D: otherwise known as Theoreme.

Growing straight out of the dirt, the first album from this idiosyncratic project since 2016’s L’appel du Midi à Midi Piles is a quantum pulsing, tubular clattering concentrated hallucination of cool but scorned French post-punk electronica, no wave (unsurprising considering Missa’s part in the no wave trio SIDA), acid Arabia, techno and dub. Its Rosa Yemen meets Just Us period Faust; The Mosquitoes meet Finis Africae, and Populäre Mechanik joins forces with Jah Wobble and Vivian Goldmine. Yet on the perimeters of all the post-this and that’s, the whole sound is heading in a thoroughly modern direction.

Concentrated melodica like waves flow across springy, bounced tubular percussion and an industrial subterranean, Lora Logic via Wire leftfield robotic funk and sulky, shrugged club downers: a come down and down and down.

Les Artisans is like Saâda Bonairre with menace and more bite; an avant-garde reconstruction of punk and Cosey Fanni Tutti’s electronic music with a shimmer, feel of futurist Arabia and beyond.

From that upcoming album the Monolith Cocktail is delighted to premiere the funnelled, slightly spooked and abrasive reverberated  ‘Les Gifles Du Pariétal’ – or “the slap of the partial” – track below:

Les Artisans will be released through Maple Death Records on December the 3^rd 2021. You can pre-order here…