PETIT MAL

LIVE

Hometown: London.
The lineup: Ben Seymour (synths) and Melanie Gilligan (vocals).

The background: Petit Mal may be an electro-pop duo comprising one boy and one girl, but The Ting Tings they are not. Their debut single isn't called "Oi! DJ Shut Up and Let Me Dance" or anything like that. No, it's called Crisis In the Credit System and, notwithstanding Stereolab's socio-political messages and Marxist critiques, it's the first pop song about the credit crunch, even though it was actually written two years ago. Which makes them not just brainier than The Ting Tings, but more prescient, too.

They must be brainy because one of them, Ben Seymour, is the Deputy Editor of online publication, Mute, who recently wrote something about regeneration and gentrification in London, made a film on the subject and worked on a series of photo-essays on the restructuring of the capital's East End while creating a research database for "antagonists of contemporary urbanism". Meanwhile, his partner Melanie Gilligan, hardly a dunce herself, is a sometime filmmaker who penned an article, Slumsploitation - The Favela on Film and TV, on "the cinema of slums" (eg City Of God), that explored the difficult subject of "whether representation is the answer to 'social exclusion' or one of the mechanisms of its reproduction". Blimey. As synthpop duos go, Petit Mal make the Pet Shop Boys look a bit, well, thick. One of their songs is called Mt Dimension and features a line about "Escher-like cross-characterisation". Petit Mal have been labelled "Chris & Cosey meet Malaria, with lyrics by Robbe-Grillet". And not for nothing. Robbe-Grillet was a French writer (he died in February) whose style was described as "phenomenological". Enough said.




And yet, and yet ... You can dance to them. Just. "Petit mal" is used to mean seizure, the sort that occurs during epilepsy, but you don't have to jerk manically like Ian Curtis while their music is playing. They've got that arty/accessible duality down pat, the sort that early '80s synth-duos used to have, so that before you even realise it, you're humming and moving along to ideas that are quite high-falutin' and complex. While the electronic melodies are easy on the ear, the lyrics are likely to be about how "grief is a curious state" or somesuch. Crisis In the Credit System might be sung with Teutonic dispassion by Gilligan, and it might be about "the mysteries of the global financial system ... based on a prophecy of financial apocalypse", but it's accompanied by a lovely melancholy tune and a finger-clicking electronic beat. Yes, the single will be featured in a four-part fictional film of the same name that Gilligan has scripted and directed (to be released online on September 29), one that makes connections between Northern Rock and Das Kapital, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable, even if a working knowledge of capitalist imperatives and socio-economic structures is recommended.

The buzz: "The most interesting and forward looking artists on the avant-electronic underground pop scene!"

The truth: Erudite disco can have mass appeal – remember, the Pet Shop Boys used to reference Che Guevara and Debussy on their hits...

Most likely to: Seize the means of production.

Least likely to: Induce seizures – this music really is just standard, infectious electro-pop.

What to buy: Crisis In The Credit System is released by Difficult Fun on October 13.

File next to: Pet Shop Boys, Tears For Fears, OMD, Yazoo.




Highbrow electro ... Petit Mal in the studio

ANTIFAMILY

https://tinyurl.com/8vcp2a8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SyxpRwAkhE

‘Antifamily are a collective of artists operating both in the U.K. and Europe. I stress “artists” because they are not only musicians, but Marxists, painters, poets ... the list goes on. This LP, self-titled and released on London label Difficult Fun, utilizes 10 of those artists to create an effectively politically-charged post punk album.
https://youtu.be/o2KqnDrBeCM

Front and back cover by Anja Kirschner

Inner sleeve by Pauline Broekman


With Agnese Trocchi Dennis Dubovtsev, Juliette Savin, Martin Münch

2004: Antifamily – Antifamily EP, Difficult Fun.

https://www.fusetronsound.com/products/antifamily-antifamily-ep

Cover: Melanie Gilligan/ Antifamily