François Virot, mastermind behind the 3-piece Dijon-based band Clara Clara, is a batteur of the highest order. He batters, bashes, and beats all over his kit like he’s got four arms holding two drumsticks each. The sweat he works up drenches the band’s full-length debut, “AA,” in a wild sizzle. Bandmates—no slouches—are brother Charles Virot, whose loosely-strung bass guitar sounds like a 6-string guitar being lovingly strangled by a doomed suitor in a star-crossed tragedy, and Amélie Lambert, whose analog synths conjure the soundtrack to a ravenous 8-bit go-go videogame that no one but her can win. Collectively, they concoct a joyful, noisy racket that eschews lyrics and vocals save for some three-way, blissed-out chants and shouts.
Kicking off with a splendidly distorted organ line, album highlight “Baise main” lurches with jittery intensity for several seconds before the bass and drums tumble in. The jumpy song shifts textures, rhythms, and melodies several times; the stops and starts recall the Pixies at their most neurotic, or an overstimulated four-year-old unable to decide what to play with in a roomful of toys. Clara Clara summon a mischievous tension that builds to a dizzy head until the song crashes to an exhausted end. Hot.
The crackling sound that you hear, by the way, is the electric excitement here at the Pop de trop offices as we await the imminent, mid-March release of Clara Clara’s second album, “Comfortable Problems,” on the Paris label Clapping Music. Can’t wait!
click the image below to listen to song previews or buy the album:
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