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OH A, MONOKINI
(Kill Rock Stars)
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They’re based in Berlin; they sing in German, French, Japanese, Italian, and a charming sort of broken English; and they’ve become a big enough cult sensation for respected Olympia indie label Kill Rock Stars to reissue two of their best albums. The heart of Stereo Total is the duo of Françoise Cactus and Brezel Göring, two unabashed fans of kitschy synth-pop, brash garage rock, and cheesy karaoke. Their appreciation for trash culture, though centered on European icons like Serge Gainsbourg, extends to the US, and they bring a rock edge to their synth stylings. The reissue of Oh A and Monokini comes on the heels of Kill Rock Stars’ release last year of the band’s most recent album, Musique Automatique, which included a giddy tribute to three-way sex ("L’amour à 3") in both its original French and an English version ("Love with the 3 of Us"). Oh Ah (1995) and Monokini (1997), however, take us back to the first two Stereo Total albums. The duo had yet to embrace fully the retro futurism of Atari-game sounds and vintage synth textures — the heart of Musique Automatique — on these discs. Instead, they tended toward an odd mix of suave ’60s-style French pop and raucous American garage guitar rock. "Dactylo Rock," from Oh Ah, is a cute little ditty about a secretary in love that’s accented by the sound of her typewriter and driven by Göring’s noisy guitar riffs. Cactus responds with her best vocal attempts on Salt-N-Pepa’s "Push It" and KC & the Sunshine Band’s "Get Down Tonight," both of which bring to mind a drunken night out at a karaoke bar. The disc’s standout is "Moviestar," an amusing cover of a silly number by the ’70s Swedish singer Harpo that Göring sings deadpan, without a wink or a nudge. Monokini is no less eclectic or appealing. The disc boasts everything from an American-style punk-rock tune ("LA, CA, USA") to the hook-laden Europop of "Schön von Hinten," which is reprised in Japanese translation as "Ushilo Sugata Ga Kilei," a radically reworked version of the song marked by spastic rhythms and vintage synth effects.
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