Bang On Time! It’s about time!
Five years! We’ve been waiting for a new album by Bikini Machine for five years! Not that the band from Rennes has not been busy during those 5 years. After many live accompaniments to movies (Robert Rodriguez’s “Desperado”), loads of gigs and an album with Didier Wampas, they’re back in great shape with what they do best: a 60s-infused album firmly rooted in the 21st century!
And guys, this record is a tour de force!
A record that gets straight to the point. A record which can, in hardly 30 minutes, carry you in a flash from the dance-floor to the dark back alleys of a film noir. Albums recorded within 3 years – at the rate of one session per semester (because of
extremely busy schedules with side projects) – with such a consistent sound are few and far
between!
The record was fully written in English – “less childish”, they say. No more off-beat humor borrowed from Lautner’s movies or Jacques Dutronc’s and Nino Ferrer’s songs. Even though they certainly don’t repudiate their past, Bikini Machine embraces a graver tone, but still set to groovy rhythms. “Before that, Bikini Machine was like The Party (a 1968 movie by Blake Edwards starring Peter Sellers); today, if we had to apply images from movies to this record, it would be Get Carter (a 1971 movie with Michael Caine playing a cold-blooded thug) ». “It’s our most mature album to date,” they say, laughing. Admittedly, the phrase is getting trite, but after all… what if “Bang On Time!” really was a new start for Bikini Machine?
By the bye, this new start is further underlined by the reorganization the band has undergone. Gone is the multi-instrumentalist band where everyone switched instruments song after song. The “volleyball team” approach has disappeared, as remarks singer Fred Gransard. Now everyone plays his role and keeps to it. And this can be heard in the music – denser, more packed, more intense!
Yet, Bikini Machine has not given up on doing what only them do so brilliantly: “we’ve poured old wine into new bottles,” they joke. Old wine into new bottles? This can be found in an intro hinting at John Barry in his James Bond period (“The Shade Of My Soul”), a riff of Hammond organ worthy of the Spencer Davis Group (“Watch Me Going By”), or even a Motown-like rhythm with tambourine (“Stop All Jerk”).
Not really a surprise though, knowing that Fred has repeatedly listened to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” during the last three years. Besides, if you’re wondering what the members of Bikini Machine listen to, be assured.they’ve got really good taste: The Monks, Black Lips, Small Faces, Thee Oh Sees are the records that have been on their decks lately.
And the one that will soon appear on yours is “Bang On Time!”
“Bang On Time!” – As in “right on time”, for an often helter-skelter band.
“Bang On Time!” – Like a catchphrase that bangs at the end of a trailer for an American movie.
“Bang On Time!” – Like a perfect beat for a perfectly grooving rock album.
Francis Viel
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