French HipHop. Automatically Europeans might think of funky, soul-based stuff like MC Solaar and or maybe even druid chants like Manau. However, there is also this other side of French HipHop, one that is as modern and forward thinking as other such artists like our beloved Dälek. While he has his roots in stuff like noise and ambient, Biollante from Paris have theirs in hardcore punk and electro-noise.
No, we are surely not turning into Juice magazine now, but when there is a HipHop-side project from one of the most intriguing new hardcore bands around – Non Serviam – then we must have a listen and tell you what to expect. And to say that straightaway, one won’t be disappointed if you like your hiphop without a focus on the bouncy part or on the flowing lyrics. This record is much more about the music than about the raps and that, too, is essentially hiphop.
By simply looking at the tracklist and the tracks’ lengths one sees that this is not an average record – six tracks spanning 47 minutes and “Pourquoi Pas”, the last one, being more than 20 minutes long! And even for an experimental hiphop record that last track is long!. Very quickly it becomes obvious that the people behind this record have musical experience and know their instruments, because in the intro one hears screeching guitars that sound a little bit like remnants of some noisy 90s crossover when the bands tried to integrate more than just riffs into their sound. And there are other moments, when that becomes even more evident – when they use a spinet in the last track or the general awesome usage of the synths throughout the record.
The beats are mostly subdued in the background or sometimes really itchy in the foreground – only in the title track do they form the backbone of the song. ”Biollante” is surely the most conventional of the tracks but it surely doesn’t come across like one because of the noisy background beats and spacey cross-shots and simplistic beats (sounding somewhat like a mix of vibraphone and crossfades between chunky metal plates rubbing off of each other).
The way they incorporate vocal samples and spoken dialogue into their sound, especially on the final longtrack, is really good and makes for a really interesting listening experience, even when not being able to decipher any of the French words – which might be the only problem for most readers and also for me. Nevertheless, this industrial-influenced record shows another reason why one should follow Non Serviam and all their side-projects. Biollante is musically so good that it has been spinning my head for days now. Yes, it’s not funky and flowing like the aforementioned mainstream rappers from France but it is much more interesting, that’s for sure!
