Following on from her debut single -- called, logically enough, No. 1 -- the next effort by
Alice Daquet (aka
Sir Alice) was No. 2, a half-hour-long blast of poppy noise and electro-rock with take-no-guff French vocals. The great thing about
Sir Alice's singing is that while she's definitely no traditional chanteuse thanks to the distortion and her bold tones, it's not too hard to imagine what a combination of
Françoise Hardy and
Chicks On Speed might have resulted in thanks to songs like "Superhero." If anything, like many female electro and techno artists,
Sir Alice brings life to seemingly go-nowhere approaches -- a couple of years after electroclash was judged to be yesterday's news, she trumps a fair amount of what that abortive attempt at a movement created. Tropes like murky synth basses and electronic drums -- or laptop-created variants -- abound. There's a remarkable variety on No. 2, from the clipped robot voice samples and alarm pulses that turn "La Maîtresse" into a quietly paranoid nightmare to the breathy exultance and gentle guitar chimes introducing "Onanisme." When she concentrates on creating manic pop, however, she's probably at her best. The bubbling breaks and glitch beats on "Technotronic" -- not a cover of "Pump Up the Jam," though that would have been an interesting idea -- and the metal guitar madness of "Bouda Is a Material Girl" make for some beautiful, barely controlled stridency that suggest what
Le Tigre could be doing these days instead. ~ Ned Raggett