3 Cold Men - Photogramm

3 Cold Men - Photogramm
Label: Lado Z – LZ012, Wave Records (4) – W010
Format: CD, Album
Country: Brazil
Released: 2008
Style:  Electro, Synth-pop

How to produce electronic music nowadays without falling in the trap of new technologies - those which leads thousands to a variety of cloned and unpersonal tracks – and conquer its place under the dancefloor strobes for no more than mere
15 seconds? The answer can be found in "Photogramm" – the new 3 Cold Men´s album – and in the elements that bring relevance and personality to its music.
Musically speaking, the references here lead to the European cold wave from the beginning of the 80´s, to the seeds of techno sewed by germans and genetically mutaded by Americans from Detroit and Chicago and also to Hi-NRG, by excentricity or excellence.
Romantic, synthetic and moved by a pulsing and mechanical rhythm, 3CM´s production founds its apex in the collision between kraftwerk and Kevin Saunderson, as shown in the melodic and pounding "The Rain on Seattle". The charismatic vocal of Franck Lopez transposes the track from visagism to the pastoral psychedelia in an exercise of pure eclecticism, moved by programmed beats over the 130 BPMs.
"Perfect Clone" is electronic pop envolved by sumptuous chords that ranges from the human misery to the sunny skies of some medieval earldom. Since you notice the right influences, they seem to vanish dynamically among the filters and precise mixing. Visage, John Foxx, Gary Numan, techno with german accent but French romanticism and the inspiration proceeding from the urban side of the biggest cities – in a well-balanced dye between white and black.
"My Greatest Greta", the unforgetable homage paid to Greta Garbo, reappears from "Urban Rmxs as a new version, remmodeled by new timbres from the resonant octave-played sequencing from Maurizio Bonito and Alex Twin´s synths, through the progression of the crucial years of this mythical icon of the seventh art.
If the future is one step beyond the past, 3CM is safely with one foot at the futuristic past previewed by Fritz Lang in Metropolis and another one three steps ahead. Future pop? No! Electronic pop would me more appropriate; elegant, filtered and with a calculated drama and an overdose of danceable entertainment.