Mr Oizo/Gaspard Auge – Rubber OST review

Anticipation for the release of Mr Oizo’s film Rubber amongst the Gallic house loving cognoscenti is trumped only by Disney’s forthcoming Tron: Legacy blockbuster and its associated soundtrack from Daft Punk. Whereas the latter also features an Oscar winner in Jeff Bridges and some eye candy in Olivia Wilde, Rubber’s plot structure depicting the homicidal rampage of a tyre blessed with psychokinetic powers leaves a little to be desired.

At least Mr Oizo has got the music perfectly judged thanks in no small part to the presence of Gaspard Auge (you might remember him from popular beat combo Justeeece) if this four track EP is any indication. The title track “Rubber” is familiarly schizophrenic Oizo territory, commencing with a mere hint of Morricone atmospherics put through the loop grinder before the drop into a scratched line of bleeptronics and ADD vocal samples. “Rubber” finds its legs when bass patterns reminiscent of Justice in their pomp take centre stage.

Flying Lotus strikes you as an obscure choice for remix duties but the Brainfeeder don does a superlative job on his Unprotected Sex mix, laying mutant synth lines and spaced out textures atop the mix for a truly demented vision of the source material. On the flip “Tricycle Express” is a new variation on the sort of escalating retro electro synth mastodon that invariably appear a B-Sides on Ed Banger releases. “Polocaust” rounds things off with a certain degree of musical intrigue as Oizo and Auge flip the script totally, crafting a symphonia of Baroque melody which no doubt is the musical backdrop to a particularly grisly scene involving chickens. Tony Poland