Musicsoldia

French dance act Pills (essentially the vehicle of producer Anthony Sandor) follows up its excellent Electrocaine disc with more minimalist inner-city techno on Musicsoldia. Like early Daft Punk, the appeal of Pills’ streetwise electro-funk is in its simplicity; while other electronic artists detail their pieces with complex programming and denser dynamics, Pills just find a good groove and ride it home. That’s what makes tracks like “April Sun” and the hypnotic “I Am Real” so irresistible. Another highlight is the album’s title track, which features dub reggae godfather Lee “Scratch” Perry in a fitting duet with Sandor, whose embrace of reggae has permeated much of his earlier work (check out Adventures of Pills in Dub). A curious low point of Musicsoldia: the vocal melody of “Insane Moves” (sung by guest Rachid Taha) is a note-for-note ripoff of Bernard Sumner’s well-known verse in the Chemical Brothers’ “Out of Control,” released a year earlier! – Andy Hinds