Various Artists – Cochen en Boite

Mislead by the rather alluring title and expecting something on a par with St. Germain’s sleep-inducing tooting, I practically wept with the grief only an avid music fan can know when forth from my stereo spilled the stomach disrupting lyrical expulsion of Jillian Iva breathing, “I'm a love maker, soul shaker, body manipulator,” in a manner not far removed from Cher’s auto tune incident. I persevered through hallucinations of topless grinding, dax wax a go go clichés of all night gay bars, cringing at the cheesy lyric overload. The Kohl Heart: “so dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s ‘cause baby you’re just like a disease.” Hey Willpower: “I’m ok with playing truth or dare so long as you end up in your underwear” and on it went. Needless to say, I was rather disturbed.

Cochon en Boite is a selective showcase of bands signed to Cochen and Princehouse Records, a painfully artsy and hip crowd based in hilly San Francisco. However, the album isn’t a complete lost cause. Kicking off around track seven with ProCon’s 80s stomper, moving swiftly to Vanishing’s “Idol Eyes” for some serious pumping hypnotism and the brilliant Veronica Lipgloss and her Evil Eyes are like a parade of marching Kat Bjellands playing Diamanda Galas on ghetto blasters. Finally, the concluding track by Paradise Island, Jenny Hoyston’s (of Erase Errata fame) solo project, is without a doubt the saving grace of this record.

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