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Les
Georges Leningrad
Just as there are too few sincere meat and potato bands that possess enough humor, intelligence, and aesthetic sensibility to ever achieve greatness, there’re even fewer art schooly collectives that possess fresh ideas, cohesive concepts, and, particularly, the ability to rock out. French Canadians Les Georges Leningrad are one of the few of the ladder in the contemporary underground music landscape. When the post-punk revival was tapering off culturally but making a giant impact commercially, LGL were one of the few artists to really push the edges and create their own game – drawing a firm line between their art and the stuff that indie yuppies and children gobble up at block parties. Their debut, Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou also stood far apart from the rest of the bands loosely throwing around the term no wave – particularly in that they actually possessed much of the dissonance, abstract vision, and rough edges that their contemporaries lacked. Sur Le Traces De Black Eskimo, their second, was brilliantly disjointed defaced disco – and precisely the type of dance party I have always wanted to attend. Though darker, richer, and heavier, you will find LGL’S latest, Sangue Puro, like its two multipurpose predecessors, useful as comedy, art, and dance stimuli. The highly Resident-ial title track lives up to the dada promise that’s been tossed around in the discussion of the band for years. The trio then spends the next half-hour or so snaking in and out of the groove with unusual rhythms and plenty of force. The electronics are still completely screwed up and down in the best of all possible ways and Poney P’s shriek is pure helium. While the bulk of the material consists of quirky, abrasive yet catchy dance-rockers, they also throw in a tribal number (“Eli Eli Lamma Sabachtani”), a bizarre old school electro hip-hop joint (“Sleek Answer”), and a really fine ambient noise-scape that would’nt’ve been out of place on Throbbing Gristles’ D.O.A. (“The Future for Less”). Don’t let all of this talk of uneasy listening dissuade you. Sangue Puro is one of the most fun records I’ve heard all year - a real monster mash, LGL’s finest moment thus far, and a very difficult disc to eject…
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