Over more than half of the past decade French born SebastiAn has been remixing some of the most interesting contemporary musicians, including Daft Punk, Cut Copy, The Rapture, Bloc Party, Rage Against the Machine and The Who. His tastes are varied and this can be heard in Total, this also makes the album hard to classify with . The 22 tracks flow nicely from one to the next to create a fun and completely danceable album, full of great beats and raw sounds with whiffs of French electro, disco, R&B, rock and even a little metal. At times it sounds like it could be a live performance. This isn’t a surprising fact since the album includes several songs you might already have heard, tracks that SebastiAn’s has perfected throughout his career, albeit tweeked for the album.
It also features appearances by M.I.A. (C.T.F.O., which is probably the weakest link of the album, kind of boring and what’s with all the acronyms?), Justice’s Gaspard Augé (Tetra, a little cleaner and lighter on this album’s spectrum, the intro also makes me think of a video game music), and Mayer Hawthorne (Love In Motion, the first standout track, it’s reminiscent of Prince it will make you smile and dance around in your best purple jumpsuit).
After being in the shadow of other French acts (think Daft Punk, Justice) waiting for his turn to shine, Total cements SebastiAn as one of the scenes most ambitious, hard working and original acts. I wouldn’t label this album as a masterpiece, but it does it is consistent and it makes me look forward to more from him – but hopefully we won’t have to wait as long.
SebastiAn makes a rare North American appearance at the Hoxton on September 8; come and get down.
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