Bokan! Musics in the Margin

Editorial Reviews

Somewhere between the Langley Schools Project and random lo-fi noise jams in terms of general inspiration, Bokan!, following in the vein of an earlier CD called Music in the Margins, also coordinated by the bandleader here, Benjamin Bouffioux, collects a series of mostly fragmentary performances by teenagers he works with via a French social program. Liner notes and general presentation aim to present this as something random and offhand rather than sculpted perfection, and the idea of untutored expression as romantic ideal runs throughout the disc and its accompanying notes -- a familiar trope, and the music itself is also familiar in feeling to anyone who has dipped into bedroom recordings. Roughly miked guitars, sometimes murky singing, and light, cheap drum machine beats could make this almost be something from mid-'80s New Zealand or mid-'90s America, as Bouffioux and his many young collaborators contribute throughout, but this all said, there's much to honestly recommend on the disc at its best, especially with those songs that work out full arrangements. "C'est Une Belle Journee," sung by one Jeremie, is a sweetly hyperactive indie pop ditty, which "Chevaliers de la Table Ronde," the work of John-John (but not, perhaps sadly, a French language cover of the Monty Python song) easily matches for sweet quirk with its xylophone melody. The many shorter snippets that consist of the majority of the disc, if often just quick impressions more than anything else, have their own moments as well -- "Harry Potter and Rocky" may not be the Monks but chugs away like it more often than not, Loic's "I've Been Worried" is a lonely weird soul-blues that sounds like Jandek backing Malcolm Mooney, while Karim's "Percussions" is a manic, memorable blast of drumming and chanting that acts as the perfect lead-in to the equally bonkers "Reebok Mix" by Laurant Adam. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi All Music Guide

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