The Guardian (British newspaper): “When Christine and the Queens first appeared in the anglophone world in 2015, the name was an alias for Héloïse Letissier: a French artist with an extraordinary line in immaculately cool, obliquely catchy, 80s-flavoured synthpop that mused on queer identity. By 2018, Letissier had become Chris – the eponymous, androgynous protagonist of her funky second album. Then, last year, the musician announced he was now using male pronouns as well as another moniker: ‘Redcar’, also the title character of his third album, ‘Redcar les Adorables Étoiles’… Letissier’s clearly rocky path to self-realisation has been entangled with seismic grief – in 2019, his mother died – and Paranoïa, Angels, True Love is a howl of despair sublimated into astonishingly beautiful experimental pop, drenched in warm celestial light, punctured by spikes of confused pain… A howl of despair sublimated into beautiful experimental pop, the artist’s fourth album is his best yet.” Score: 5/5.
TUTV: The perfect midnight summer soundtrack for twisted minds and distressed souls, so many of us, looking for answers to too much questions. Slo-mo dream pop in motion with a healing impact.
Singles/clips:To Be Honest / True Love / Tears Can Be So Soft
MARK STEWART, original post-punk crusader and frontman of legendary Bristol misfits The Pop Group‘s also released (so far) 7 solo albums over the years. His first longplayer LEARNING TO COPE WITH COWARDICE recorded with his MAFFIA gang came out back
in 1983. It will be reissued next January alongside THE LOST TAPES, a newly discovered cache of unreleased material, via Mute records.
Godfather Mark Stewart perceives The Lost Tapes as a document that now possesses
a storied significance: “It was a real adventure discovering this forbidden history, a twisted
tale of Muswell hillbillies, French pirates and a Dutch schizophrenic doctor doing psychic archaeology.”
Producer and longtime sonic collaborator Adrian Sherwood describes The Lost Tapes as characteristic of a distinct primitivism: “They represent the early childhood of the songs before Mark and me conducted frenzied, scorched earth, slash-and-burn, twenty-hour mental, manic editing sessions at Crass’ studios that led to birthing the finished album.”
Here’s a taster from the 10-track collection of newly discovered material. PARANOIA is a dancey dub reggae groove sounding utterly fresh and catchy. Its feverish bass-driven vibe with Stewart‘s characteristic vox – half spoken, half sung – all over it and the fervent horns in the back will cause action near the area of your hips. Oh yeah, you can definitely dance to paranoia. You can try it for yourself right here…
