(I’m not entirely happy with this Le Tigre reviewlet but pending articulation of whatever else is kicking around my head re. the band I’ll put it up anyway….)
LE TIGRE – “Deceptacon”
Do you want new wave or do you want the truth? Le Tigre say: both. What “Deceptacon” is positing, while you get off on its pinball bassline and overdriven robot rhythms, is this: that rock and roll, the weird unknown heart of rock and roll, whatever that may be (they call it the bomp, which suffices), has been lost. No, that would be boring and blameless: has been stolen. “Who took it?” – that’s what they’re asking. “How can we get it back?” – that’s what they’re demonstrating.
Meanwhile I’m still mostly digging the music, and Kathleen Hanna’s tumbling crackling stabbing non-voice, which against this high-kicking bouncy background just sounds fantastic. I think it’s dull when people – men or women – start winking backwards at rock history, even if they’re trying to, I don’t know, subvert it. So when she sings, wonderfully, “I wanna disco / Wanna wanna disco / Let me see you depoliticise my rock” (I think that’s what she’s singing: that’s what she’s singing to me), I take it as an imperative, not a defiant challenge.