In the blue corner

One-man bands playing garage gloop are more common than beer bellies at a brewery birthday bash, so what's the buzz on French exponent King Automatic that could make you give a shit? It's the songs, stupid. These tunes are the King's best to date and they're delivered with more than enough rough-edged, Gallic charm to convince most that he's fronting a full band. Even allowing for essential studio overdub magic and some well-placed male and female backing vocals, King Automatic moves through his arsenal of guitar, drums, keys, harmonica and voice with the ease of a trained killer.
The trick of pulling it off and making it stick is in the feels employed, and King Automatic moves from organ-powered tattered lounge blues-vamp on "Moodswings" to the fuzz-and- piano-propelled garage stomp of "King Takes Queen" with rhythmic feet anchored to the pedals. "Mighty Sword Of Truth" shifts the playing field to syncopated blues-beat, just to mix it up, but this is an album whose tempos either swing or stutter. "Things Are What They Are But Never What They Seem" gets in the pocket like a N'Orleans honky tonk bar band on a four-day bourbon bender, while the off-kilter clatter of "Let's Have a Party" sounds like the same crew in hair-of-the-dog mode.

"There Is No Truth In The Night" gets a noir treatment with the King putting his vocal down in the gutter. "Fake Skinheads In Love" is scattergun fuzz skronk in the finest Oblivians tradition, while "There Goes George" sounds like Madness lent him their keyboard player. There's no mistaking that rock backbeat, though.
English being the language of (most) rock and roll, the King only resorts to his native tongue on one song ("Le Redresseur De Torts") but he could sing the phone book on this one and it'd still be a killer cup of loping back-beat, shaker, harmonica and handclaps to linguistic numb nuts like me.

Voodoo Rhythm stuff is sometimes a little hard to track down but fear not; that link in the title will take you to the source so you can order direct. If you're in Australia, Off The Hip's Melbourne store should be your supplier. (The Barman - I94BAR - Australia)

In the Blue Corner by King Automatic. He's a one-man garage band from Nancy, France, playing guitar, keyboards, harmonica, and drums and melding them all together through the magic of tape loops. It's high tech and primitive at the same time.
On Automatic's previous album, I Walk My Murderous Intentions Home, he displayed a knack for garage noir. He carries that even further on the new record, On Blue Corner, his second release on Voodoo Rhythm Records. KA expands his sound, showing more influence from blues, sinister jazz, and Jamaican rock steady.

A couple of my favorites here are "Doctor Jekyll & Sister Hyde," which suggests blues from some dark alley with a piano riff lifted from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," and "Things Are What They Are but Never What They Seem," which has a melody that might have been inspired by an all-night binge while listening to Tom Waits albums -- though it sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis is playing piano.
"Let's Have a Party" could be Martians playing rockabilly, while "Le Redresseur de Torts," with its thumping bass and drums answered by harmonica honks, might be described as a brontosaurus blues. Then there's "Mood Swings" -- with its slinky, sleazy organ and faux Jamaican-rhythm guitar, it could almost be a scene from a movie in which something's about to go terribly wrong in a cocktail lounge. Check out www.myspace.com/lekingautomatic and www.voodoorhythm.com (Steve Terrell - CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE - USA)