Solex
Low Kick And Hard Bop

THE REVIEW

The Dutch artist Elizabeth Esselink aka Solex is the author of "Low Kick and Hard Bop" (Matador, 2001), without exaggeration, one of the most important and distinctive works (not necessarily the most well-known) of the current decade, a work capable of distilling the essence of contemporary music to create magical sound potions that embrace the past while simultaneously moving beyond it.
"Low Kick" is a heterogeneous catalog of notes outlining a new and original contemporary path to pop, traced through a personal technique that involves sampling and pasting fragments of music together (sourced from her second-hand record shop) from the most varied origins: while the cut-and-paste technique is not entirely original, having been exploited by numerous avant-garde artists, the result is strikingly fresh, devoid of the heaviness and introversion typical of pure research works, a result that to inattentive ears might seem the logical consequence of writing simple songs: and it is precisely in this masking of complexity behind a pop-like veil that Solex's true genius is concealed.

A good taste is already given by the first, eponymous track, which pairs a staggering harmonica borrowed from good vintage blues with pulsating electronic rhythms and Elizabeth's bright voice, before plunging into a black hole of keyboards; the gold medal of the record goes to "Have you no shame, girl?", characterized by a marvelous vocal emergence and a base rich with instruments in the under-background, for an overall effect reminiscent of more than one aspect of early Beck; slight resonances with El Guapo (beaten to the punch, we must clarify...) are instead found in "Shoot shoot!", a deviated, dark, and elegant melody where the keyboard sound is strong and obsessive; countless are the synthetic nursery rhymes Miss Solex manages to create, surrounded by bells and toy-like instruments ("Mere Imposters"), very simple guitar chords and various noises ("Ololo") and trumpets that seem to have come out of a Totò film ("Good comrades go to heaven").
The Future spaghetti western sound of "You say potato, I say aardappel" is also thrilling, as is the aborted rock n' roll of "Comely Row" (the most punk, in its own way, of the album); and then there is "Caienne" and "Honey (Amsterdam is not L.A.)", which exude freshness from every pore, and "Not a hoot!", a rain dance performed by Indians who have emigrated to Japan.