Angelique

Present (Red Ant)
by Jamie Kiffel

Somewhere between ’70s funkadelic feline woman disco goofiness and ’80s gimmicky synth-with-backup-singer dance pop bops Angelique, who is an ideal example of the maxim, “You can’t judge a CD by its cover.” Whoever packaged this woman must have been hoping to sway her toward fulfilling his own retro-Cure fantasies, creating a Goth wraith with deep-shadowed eyes and crucifix-sculpted braids. Listening between the laser cuts, however, we discover an entirely different brand of retro: something like if Luscious Jackson met Alanis Morissette and they decided to jam on old Jefferson Airplane tunes. That is, deep funky female vocals plus jazzy dance beats as well as techno sounds over acoustic guitar and inane rock ‘n’ roll lines like, “Her name was Ruby and precious like the stone they said,” or the story of James, who “liked to drink beer in bed to start the day/I found that to be a bit peculiar/but I think he liked it that way.” All the songs are either highly danceable without strain to the lyric-scrutinizing parts of the cerebrum, or likely candidates for the soundtrack to some angsty Generation X movie starring Bridget Fonda and/or Ethan Hawke (no coincidence according to her press release: Angelique sang lead for The Indians, who were featured in Reality Bites. If you dig that, here’s equipment to build your very own commercial vehicle to capitalize on the generation which supposedly sits back and waits for you to make a movie celebrating just that fact). Tunes range from head bop-inspiring rock to synthesized samba beats over bad bar mitzvah band backup. Angelique is not at all painful to listen to, or even dull; she simply lifts transparencies of past eras off their originals, and overlays the slightly reduced-punch soundbites to create a modpodge of perky, plain, good-enough pop.
(9044 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA 90060)