THE PROTOTYPES: Je Ne Te Connais Pas

By Sean Gould

"Shit-kicking electropunk" according to the Minty Fresh website. I call it, "Ass-kicking-proto-space-punk". No matter. Get your kicks here. Record company Minty Fresh, has, for a limited time, released an EP of Prototypes' album Je Ne Te Connais Pas, and the music is so good it's the biggest French conspiracy since the Day of the Jackal. Je Ne Te Connais Pas— what this means, I don't know myself. I do know that on Tuesday I downloaded this EP and on Wednesday I ordered every type of ass-kicking the Parisian Prototypes have ever recorded.

The music isn't ass kicking in a brutal way. It isn't angry, nor heavy sounding, but it has bite like a big poodle with robot jaws. Up beat, chic, ready to leave a mark, and cool as hell. There is nothing vague and ambient about this CD. Every song encourages continual movement. New wave party movement. Stephan Bodin provides a steady rich and rhythmic background of grinds and beeps with the synths and bass, while guitarist François Marche provides catchy tune-age with the guitar. Isabelle Le Doussal provides vocals.

The title track, "Je Ne Te Connais Pas," sets up the groove with super distorted sythns, drums, guitars and a clap track. Plus there are the vocals of "Bubble Star". Doussal sings in the most commanding French I have ever heard. I don't know what she is saying but it sounds good. I think it is secret French messages to my girlfriend.

The second song, "Un Gars Fragile," is pure refined eighties-style techno plus clap track, with all the cheese left twenty years behind. The first five seconds are pure astro cool. Then the super-drive kicks in. Highlights include the guitar bit at 2:30 into the song, where strings and digits harmonize beautifully before recommencing into the steady pulse of an electronic craze. So-and-so sings on this one, and I swear I hear him telling me to run beneath stratospherically high synth noodlings.

"De'cider" is the darkest track on the album. The vocal part alternates between terse spoken verses and a sung chanty chorus. The song bounces from post-apocolyptic disco to post-apocolyptic tense. The bass thumps on like a heart beat, while some damsel walks down a dark post-apocolyptic alley full of robot thugs, only to kick their asses at the end.

The new wave beating lets up on the fourth song, "Boxe", and drum machine, the synth, and a guitar conspire to give the listener a beautiful repose. Pretty as it is, "Boxe" is tragically short, and the beating promptly resumes.

The coup de grace comes with the EP's final gem, "Exister." The beat is pronounced. It is pronounced B, E, A, T. Beat. The bass lays down some fresh, minty fresh, bass-age. This one is as fun as the rest, from the metallic clap track to the phased drones, from the woo hoo's to the funky guitar up-strokes. There is a very special moment of crystal exquisiteness in this song that should catch your ear. You'll know it when you hear it.

Drink coffee, run around town singing in a language you might not understand, and listen to the Prototypes.