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CD
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BORNBAD 159CD
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Couleur Brique, third album released by Born Bad Records for one-man-operation Usé, opens with a coughing fit spurting on a piano, while a guitar gently dies in the back of a hangar. The connoisseur will rekindle fond memories of his underground hit "ampheta-amphéta- amphétamine", this time to warn you about the "chef d'é, chef d'é, chef d'é-tat". You won't know what he had to spit about to the president, but he's got some left on his trousers. Usé literally punches songs, beating the snare drum to celebrate a lover that bites and claws. It's mostly about boy-meets-girl and tough love in these seven romances that taste like beer chasing uppers, and end up in the back of a van. Praise be, to the melodic effort, supported by layers of sharp and bitter synths, and a straightforward vocal performance. It's a ride in forsaken land, beer in hand, documenting horny guys at the fun fair, late evenings in a shabby pub, and dirty sheets. Here and there, when least expected, flashes of unpretentious drunken wisdom hit the spot. The record is fueled by the broken drummer's energy, but also a verified writing effort. Those songs will be sung, bonded in the wastelands, to fight against buzzkill. Once active in local politics, Nicolas Belvalette settled down for acting, recently starring in "Tout fout le camp" where he plays his own role. But he's at his best on his turf, small rooms and scroungy festivals, where the great romantic weirdo spits on his tits, crawling under a raving audience. You'll have to buy the record if you want to get the lyrics, because at a gig, it's hard to follow when you're busy figuring out whether it's sweat, piss or beer that's connecting you to your neighbor. A fine collection of autumn tunes to get wasted, start a bar fight with new friends, and fall asleep on the counter with no shame.
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LP
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BORNBAD 159LP
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LP version. Includes download code. Couleur Brique, third album released by Born Bad Records for one-man-operation Usé, opens with a coughing fit spurting on a piano, while a guitar gently dies in the back of a hangar. The connoisseur will rekindle fond memories of his underground hit "ampheta-amphéta- amphétamine", this time to warn you about the "chef d'é, chef d'é, chef d'é-tat". You won't know what he had to spit about to the president, but he's got some left on his trousers. Usé literally punches songs, beating the snare drum to celebrate a lover that bites and claws. It's mostly about boy-meets-girl and tough love in these seven romances that taste like beer chasing uppers, and end up in the back of a van. Praise be, to the melodic effort, supported by layers of sharp and bitter synths, and a straightforward vocal performance. It's a ride in forsaken land, beer in hand, documenting horny guys at the fun fair, late evenings in a shabby pub, and dirty sheets. Here and there, when least expected, flashes of unpretentious drunken wisdom hit the spot. The record is fueled by the broken drummer's energy, but also a verified writing effort. Those songs will be sung, bonded in the wastelands, to fight against buzzkill. Once active in local politics, Nicolas Belvalette settled down for acting, recently starring in "Tout fout le camp" where he plays his own role. But he's at his best on his turf, small rooms and scroungy festivals, where the great romantic weirdo spits on his tits, crawling under a raving audience. You'll have to buy the record if you want to get the lyrics, because at a gig, it's hard to follow when you're busy figuring out whether it's sweat, piss or beer that's connecting you to your neighbor. A fine collection of autumn tunes to get wasted, start a bar fight with new friends, and fall asleep on the counter with no shame.
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CD
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BORNBAD 083CD
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While some are still milking garage rock for all its cool like it will never dry out, the sleaziest alley cats are gone drinking somewhere else. Sitting on a cinderblock in the darkness of a cave in the suburbs, drinking warm beer, they'd rather witness the convulsions of a degenerating French song. Crafted with some second-hand gear and crumbs of poetry, this lament from the slums has Noir Boy George as its flagbearer and Jessica93 as companion of misfortune. You will hear it filling the air of tiny and barely sound-proofed venues, to the greatest and perverse delight of all those that the prevailing festivism has made wary, and not quite convinced that we live in the best of times. Nicolas Belvalette, known as Usé, doesn't really play the guitar, and it's barely a guitar anyway. He hits it, strikes the same chord ad nauseam, sticks a zinc cymbal on the neck, plays six instruments all at once. For a while Belvalette managed a concert venue in Amiens, l'Accueil Froid; when the place closed down, he ran in some local elections under the label of a fanciful party, le Parti Sans Cible ("The Party Without A Goal," roughly), and got 2.17% of the votes. He juggles with numerous projects (Headwar, Les Morts Vont Bien, Roberto Succo, Yvette Corner But, Sultan Solitude, and many others), and ekes out a practice in this musical interzone that is the great tribe of the DIY. Chien d'la Casse is the first album from his Usé solo project, which he initiated in 2011. Wild and aggressive, yet welcoming and touching in its bareness, the album demands surrender to the mighty power of the trance, embracing the regressive pleasure of the drums wreaking havoc, the flimsy jingles, the texts rhythmic as a Dada poem. Chien d'la Casse opens with the spiteful grunts of a pissed-off mongrel. Most of the album sounds like an ode to break-ins in garbage dumps with the sole purpose of banging on rusty cans until they burst. Only "Sous mes draps" echoes like a sad nursery rhyme, but leaves the realm of social realism to wander on the foggy heights of a fairground horror flick. "C'est si lisse" concludes the album with a fire alarm and some human barking, in an atmosphere of a black mass saturated with backward tapes; the dream ends up in chaos, it's almost day.
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LP
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BORNBAD 083LP
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LP version. Includes download code. While some are still milking garage rock for all its cool like it will never dry out, the sleaziest alley cats are gone drinking somewhere else. Sitting on a cinderblock in the darkness of a cave in the suburbs, drinking warm beer, they'd rather witness the convulsions of a degenerating French song. Crafted with some second-hand gear and crumbs of poetry, this lament from the slums has Noir Boy George as its flagbearer and Jessica93 as companion of misfortune. You will hear it filling the air of tiny and barely sound-proofed venues, to the greatest and perverse delight of all those that the prevailing festivism has made wary, and not quite convinced that we live in the best of times. Nicolas Belvalette, known as Usé, doesn't really play the guitar, and it's barely a guitar anyway. He hits it, strikes the same chord ad nauseam, sticks a zinc cymbal on the neck, plays six instruments all at once. For a while Belvalette managed a concert venue in Amiens, l'Accueil Froid; when the place closed down, he ran in some local elections under the label of a fanciful party, le Parti Sans Cible ("The Party Without A Goal," roughly), and got 2.17% of the votes. He juggles with numerous projects (Headwar, Les Morts Vont Bien, Roberto Succo, Yvette Corner But, Sultan Solitude, and many others), and ekes out a practice in this musical interzone that is the great tribe of the DIY. Chien d'la Casse is the first album from his Usé solo project, which he initiated in 2011. Wild and aggressive, yet welcoming and touching in its bareness, the album demands surrender to the mighty power of the trance, embracing the regressive pleasure of the drums wreaking havoc, the flimsy jingles, the texts rhythmic as a Dada poem. Chien d'la Casse opens with the spiteful grunts of a pissed-off mongrel. Most of the album sounds like an ode to break-ins in garbage dumps with the sole purpose of banging on rusty cans until they burst. Only "Sous mes draps" echoes like a sad nursery rhyme, but leaves the realm of social realism to wander on the foggy heights of a fairground horror flick. "C'est si lisse" concludes the album with a fire alarm and some human barking, in an atmosphere of a black mass saturated with backward tapes; the dream ends up in chaos, it's almost day.
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