Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia

Pain Disappears

(Buzzin' Fly)

US release date: 12 February 2008

UK release date: Available as import

by Filmore Mescalito Holmes

Ben Watt’s Buzzin’ Fly Records is one to watch. Justin Martin’s Chaos Restored tech house mix from 2007 received modest but highly supportive praise, and really put the young imprint on the map for collectors. Now, as we’re faced with the first ever artist album on the label, things are only going to get crazier. The debut full-length collaboration between Mademoiselle Caroline Laher and Perpignan homeboy Franck Garcia is a remarkable work of open-minded electronica as quality in its production as its diversity. Pain Disappears blends the finest bass micro house has to offer and the crunchiest indie pop guitar so flawlessly (seeing tracks lean to one extreme or the other without forsaking either) that you’ll forget what’s what or just stop caring all together.

Granted, the lyrics can get a little on the cheesy side, an unwelcome side effect of their house influence. Double tracking all the vocal with Franck’s pushed higher in the mix gets old too. I’d love to hear Caro get a lead once in a while just to up the dynamic a bit. However, the magnitude of their ambition is bound to result in a few kinks right out of the gate. I mean, the honorably similar Supermayer project Superpitcher and Kompakt boss Michael Mayer put together wasn’t flawless, and both of them have been in the game a long time. Suffice to say, the bar has been set high for Mr. Watt’s imprint.

— 4 February 2008

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