Mr. Oizo – The Church
4/5
Best known as filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, the French artist has countless side projects as a director, producer, writer, and most importantly as Mr.Oizo (pronounced like the French word for bird “oiseau”). His music career took off in 1999 with the hit “Flat Beat“ (featuring the famous puppet Flat Eric), and since then has released five albums including his latest work The Church. With so little happening, but so much at the same time, The Church is a fun and unpredictable experience from start to finish.
Stimulating all parts of the auditory sensory, “Bear Biscuit“ blasts through in all directions with synthesizers coming from every angle and melody seeping through the negative space. Mr. Oizo keeps things interesting with the sonic overload and techno track “Ham” following closely behind.
The level of experimentation balances out with electronic influences to create consumable and enjoyable tracks, such as “Dry Run” which features Dutch techo electronic dance artist Bart B More, and “Mass Doom”; both tracks flicker between melody, dance beat and unsuspecting sounds.
The Church is essentially a dance party wrapped up in the shape of an album, with the “Machyne“ delivering a steady dose of industrial house music, which smoothly transitions into the disco-trance track “ISoap”.
A large part of what makes The Church fascinating is the diversity of the tracks, which can go from disco to hypnotic in a split second, and then back suddenly to dance music. “Torero” falls under the hypnotic category with the menacing tones and pulsating synthesizers.
Finishing off the album (which clocks in at just under 30 minutes) is the title track “The Church”. Narrating a strange series of events in a day, the industrial trance track gives the album a storyline, which can be interpreted into the album for the next time.
Listen to the full album via Dazed Digital Magazine and treat yourself to some mind-altering electronic music.
