You might know Miss Kittin from her kitsch, camp and religiously Eurotrash dalliance with The Hacker on 2002’s ‘First Album’ and subsequent ‘The Beach’ 12” release. You might know her from her guest slots on records by The Chicks On Speed, Felix Da Housecat or Berlin´s Shitkatapult label boss T.Raumschmiere. But however you know her, know one thing: Miss Kittin is not a DJ; she is a ‘record pusher’.
Born in 1973 in Grenoble, a medium town in the Alps, south east of France, Caroline Herve’s life-story goes a little like this; a degree in economy in 90, studies art in Marseille in 91and later contemporary art in 93-94. She works in graphic design in Amiens in 95, becomes a DJ, part-times as a pole dancer, encounters a revelation of sorts in the KLF, the LFO, Aphex Twin and Autechre, drives around with a bundle of Belgian club tapes, parties like it’s nineteen-ninety-six at Borealis #1 in Montpellier before eventually moving to Paris to share a house with Sex Toy, Rachid Taha, and owners of the gay club Le Pu. And then there’s Zurich. Then there’s Berlin. And somewhere amongst all this, there’s her inaugural success as a well-regarded electro DJ in Geneva. Too much information? Okay, but there’s a reason: I COM is as ridiculously well travelled and cosmopolitan as the artist who serves it. Master of the German accent on the dark yet frisky “Neukolln 2“, aggressive punk android on the excellent ‘Meet Sue Be She’, trip-hop chanteuse on the silky ‘Dub About Me’, eighties synth-chic heroine on ‘Kiss Factory’ and the marvellously schizoid foil to ultraviolet love interest Michel Amato (The Hacker) in the outstanding Serge Gainsbourg pastiche ‘Requiem For A Hit’ (Miss Kittin featured on a Sven Vath cover of Gainsborough’s “Je t´aime moi non plus” interestingly enough).
For the most part I COM plays down the icy, improvisational new-wave nostalgia of ‘First Album’ and pays far greater lip-service to urban, beats and breaks, house and electro pop. It’s a far-reaching affair and about 75% successful. The remaining 25% is, disappointingly, a fair-to-middling workout of ideas based around peers, The Chicks On Speed. Seems harsh? Life is harsh. But no more harsh than being beaten with a ‘hit’.