A Working Class Woman is something to be
Marie Davidson Working Class Woman (Ninja Tune)
Montreal musician/producer Marie Davidson is back solo after last year’s Essaie Pas collaboration with Pierre Guerineau. She’s working with a concept on this 10 track release, her first for the celebrated Ninja Tune label. Having melded FrenchCanadian politics and dance culture on previous works, she’s apparently looking inwardly on this record.
Here’s five things to know about this Berlin-based electronic artists’ latest album Working Class Woman: 1 CONCEPT ALBUM
The song sequencing appears to dissect the cynicism and paranoia introduced in the opener Your Biggest Fan. This swishing spoken word piece comes complete with criticisms of the artist’s sex life, mental state, ennui over being judged and much more. It jumps between the “biggest fan” and the inside voices of the musician herself. Happy kickoff. 2 WORK IT
The mood set with the opening track gets turned all but inside-out with the spectacular single Work It that follows. This bit of pulsing bliss takes Blue Monday-style drum programming and marries it to a snarky lyric about what it takes to be a winner. It’s easy to imagine this getting grabbed by a right wing political party for promo music, although I suggest they might not get the message quite clearly.
3
A JOURNEY FROM THE PSYCHOLOGIST TO THE TUNNEL AND, ULTIMATELY, LA CHAMBRE INTERIEURE
The journey into the protagonist’s head continues with a kind of EDMshock therapy playing out over songs with titles that reference getting more and more removed and isolated. Never thought that hearing someone being called crazy could be so groovy. 4 WORKAHOLIC PARANOID BITCH
Well, there must be a culmination to all that sonic analysis. And if the final diagnosis is that you are described as this song title suggests, what then? How about some hyperactive handclaps with overlaid roto-toms, bongos, electronic cymbals, drill tones and no apparent groove but rather a constant build until it sounds like a vintage video game is getting ready to blow up. Nice. 5 BURN ME
OK, so there seems to be a bit of rhythmically-driven nihilism being expressed here. Which is why this tune is so totally club savvy. Dance as Rome burns, folks.