Flavien Berger - Contre-Temps (Pan European Recording)

French torch songs and slow rave get the synth pop treatment on Berger’s second album

Picture this album taking place in a completely ergonomic cocktail lounge populated by characters from David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Naked Lunch. Mugwumps are getting off on the warm, ectoplasmic grooves. Perversity is a living, breathing commodity that floats through the air like dead cigar smoke, getting into pores and staying there. At the centre of it all is Flavien Berger, a space age Serge Gainsbourg. He’s hunched over a microphone on the stage, keeping the Mugwumps under his spell.

Don’t let that feeling of being sucked gently into a bubblegum vortex trick you into believing there isn’t something tougher at work on Contre-Temps. Torch songs luxuriate under the surface, swaying in the winds of ease. But Berger injects them with subtle electronics, miniature bleepscapes such as on “Maddy La Nuit”, as if he were a cyborg version of Pierre Bastien. The result is bubbling synth pop that doesn’t need to peel off beyond its mid-tempo kick to impress.

“999999999” surely pays homage to “Revolution 9” in its found sound looped extended intro, before dropping into a squelchy motorik pulse. Berger allows his slow rave to tease out until he pulls it back down, descending into the quiet depths of a techno-horror score. When it kicks back in, it’s gloriously short-lived. As a result the album’s electronic centrepiece is, at almost nine minutes long, over too quickly. If Contre-Temps never quite reaches these heights again, it’s a small price to pay.

Remember electroclash? Flavien Berger does and he proves how to drag it into the present on “Reculors”, while never shedding the day-glo hints of its past. “Medieval Wormhole” deserves a mention not just because of the brilliant title, but for how it pretends to be a lost piece from Valerie and Her Week of Wonders whereas it is actually a broadcast from the French suburbs.

With Contre-Temps, Berger sets up musical arguments that cannot resolve themselves. And arbitration is never possible in a room full of Mugwumps. But you won’t hear anyone complaining.

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