Friday, September 9, 2011

Eskimo (1985)



This forgotten EP by this forgotten French new-wave band starts with "Cannibal", which reveals a fascinating brew: cold-wave, manic funk, fragmented jazz rhythms, cosmic synthesizers. Using the same basic recipe, "King Kong Talk" plunges in a tense and paranoid atmosphere, while the performance hinges in a cubist deconstruction. "Tsi Zawa" is pure groove, a paralytic tribal dance, the epitome of cold-wave. "Ioti" features the most dense and climactic atmosphere yet: a robotic ceremony which slowly explodes and hangs by a thread. "Manana" retains the tension, but in a more mournful way. "Nageuse" is pure intrigue: thick layers of theatrical suspense and elegant tippy toes, until it expands in an ever denser threatening pantomime. Get it here (vinyl rip, includes photographs of the sleeve, inner sleeve, and the vinyl).