The first time Berlin’s own maximalist star Alex Ridha, a.k.a. Boys Noize, stopped by Montreal at the Hotel W's über-trendy but uptight bar, about twenty faithful fans (yours truly included) showed up. Unfazed by this apparent lack of interest in him from Canada, and determined to get the party, you know, started, Ridha took control of the decks, of his few devotees and of the otherwise apathetic execs-filled room by throwing down what he knows best: boisterous roof-raising, fist-pumping remixes of Bloc Party and Para One tracks followed by even more boisterous roof-raising, fist-pumping originals. In other words, Boys Noize makes absolute thunderous sense when you have the dance floor all to yourself.
See, before nü-rave, Justice and Digitalism, and definitely before blind followers such as Surkin and Goose, there was Boys Noize. His first single (on Gigolo Records) came out in 2004, but he has been making music under other aliases (Kid Alex, Einzeller, 900d1sco) for many labels (Datapunk, Kitsuné, Turbo) since 2000. Sure, last year’s Restless album as Kid Alex was nothing short of excruciating and dispersed, trying to mix silly lyrics and emo-indie aesthetics with synth-pop surroundings (only remixes by Les Visiteurs, Headman, Kaos, DJ Naughty and Boys Noize himself helped salvage the entire thing from being a total disaster), but ‘Oi Oi Oi’ is a different enterprise altogether.
On his first official album as Boys Noize, Ridha is sounding more focused and unremitting than he has ever been. Tracks such as the 'Robot Rock'-inspired 'Oh!' and 'Arcade Robot' might be heavily indebted to Daft Punk (seriously, though, who isn’t nowadays, eh? Even Will.I.Am’s crippled grandma now owes them a few tricks!), but his unstinting and relentless take on rowdy techno (as displayed, for example, on single '& Down', the festive – and very Digitalism-sounding if you ask me – 'Shine Shine', or his mammoth remix of Spacer’s 'Frau' that appropriately closes the album) are denoting panache and, most of all, personality, something rackety wannabes such as Teenage Bad Girl are mostly devoid of. Clearly, Ridha is using ‘Oi Oi Oi’ to pull all the histrionic tricks from the maximalist book (don’t pretend you don’t know them), but who cares, really, considering he invented most of them anyway, right?
Thus, ‘Oi Oi Oi’ feels like the genre’s very first coherent and satisfying (and probably only) long player. On a recent single and current album track, Ridha is asking us not to believe the hype. In this album’s case, though, hearing is definitely believing. For at least a few months.
Words /
Stéphane Girard
