Les Rita Mitsouko – Marc & Robert

Minor point: the inner sleeve 'wallpaper' patterning on the original 1988 UK LP Les Rita Mitsouko - Marc & Robert is grey and white - despite the outer sleeve retaining the French release's pink/red tint.

Les Rita Mitsouko first grabbed my attention with 'Le Petit Train'. The song as catchy as it is in fact quite scary and completely out of control. Catherine Ringer's super amazing vocal range adding to great effect, this particular song became an obsession, although it took several more years to get into possession of the actual album.

Finally meeting 'Marc et Robert' (a baffling title enough to confuse it for the name of the artist) wasn't as spectacular a whole - which is a shame for the album is falling in and out of "Le Petit Train's" weird consistency.

The opener 'Hip Kit' improves the flavour of vocal and electronic overexposure, somewhat trashy but it works to great effect. Sadly, the second song ('Smog') is a bit of a letdown, trying to maintain the funniness but generally running out of a particular idea, serving as a filler in bridging the gap between 'Hip Kit' and the excellently cartoon-ish 'Mandolino City' which serves as the perfect intro to 'Le Petit Train'; a bizarre favourite, juxtaposing fun melody and lyrical brutality. According to some of the official stories circling around, 'Le Petit Train' is a reference to human atrocities - in this particular case, dealing with deportations to concentration camps, the sad theme close to Ringer's heart, as members of her family (her father, I think) died in Auschwitz.

"Perfect Eyes" keeps hinting at, but misses the energy of the previous two songs. Luckily, 'Tongue Dance' pops back in to explore the kinky area, bordering the sexual extreme, about to burst into a full orgasmic flow, simply started with a kiss. 'Singing In the Shower' is another deserved smash with impressive lyrics - an interesting study on indifference towards the outside world, and introspective view of a long-lasting relationship.

'Petite Fille Princesse' sounds intriguing, Ringer's vocals here are truly beautiful and expressive against the mechanic beat, but the song sounds half-finished. 'Harpie & Harpo' once again leaves more space allowing Ringer's multi-octave theatrics to shine through and take over - albeit a filler in itself, 'Harpie & Harpo' successfully drifts along the ridiculous melody flirting with the Eastern melos. 'Ailleurs' is a nice, soothing outro to the album (the CD version includes an extra track - "Live In Las Vegas" - again, with Sparks joining on the centre stage, pleasantly rewriting some of "Singing In The Shower").

Generally, the album screams with good ideas (literally), only proving 'Marc et Robert' actually had a far better thing in mind, than what was delivered as its final product.