How do you tell if a synth-pop duo is feminist? Well, Alice and Mariele from Venice are lesbians if that helps.
The two used to run a five woman collective but this stalled in 2012 at the same time as their romantic relationship ended. Now they've put their differences aside and are back together as musical partners.
Calling themselves feminist might suggest a political agenda but the spoken word opener (L'Ancêtre) is about a South American lunar eclipse while the closing song Phoenix Autruche apparently "explores their aversion to the gender establishment".
Their focus on dressy performance art is presumably why they have only now got round to recording a debut album with a title that translates as 'Perfect and Shameless'. Even after all this time together they manage just eight songs and a playing time of under half an hour.
They are based in Bordeaux/Lyon which explains why half of the songs are in French. The others are sung in heavily accented English.
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Lyrically none of it makes much sense even when they are singing in a language I understand.
Hints of dark paganism are uppermost in Derailing and the techno pop of Tout Nu owes a lot to Kraftwerk. Throughout, robotic vocals are backed by cold, synthesized beats.
This emotional detachment wouldn't necessarily be a problem if they were singing about autobahns or showroom dummies but songs like M or Wheel Of Fortune reference feelings of love, joy and desire while Tie Me Up makes you think of kinky sex games.
What I suspect is meant to be erotic and/or mysterious just ends up sounding pretentious and, frankly, a bit silly.
Album link on Bandcamp
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