O.Lamm - Monolith
[Audio Dregs/Active Suspension; 2006]
Pitchfork - Rating: 7.1

Olivier Lamm, aka Odot, aka O.Lamm, has too many ideas and too many names. The 27-year-old glitch-pop experimentalist shares his European record label and broad-minded view of pop with Shugo Tokumaru, but the Frenchman's recordings are more frenetic and electronic-based than those of his Japanese peer (who has only mellowed since 2004 breakthrough Night Piece). On third proper full-length Monolith, released in the U.S. by Portland's Audio Dregs, O.Lamm overextends himself even further-- but more like a slinky than a bungee cord, so hooray no bloodshed.

It'd probably only be video game bloodshed, anyway. Monolith Mario-Paints laptop breakbeats, J-pop bleeps, and, somewhere, a Gameboy version of a Melvins riff into a delightfully seizure-inducing fantasy. The princess is in this castle, starting with Lullatone's Yoshimi Tomida on kaleidoscopic do-re-mi opener "La Chasse Aux Oiseaux". The real prize, however, is "Open Malice", featuring Paris trio Konki Duet's Zoe Wolf sounding beguilingly listless on a bass-heavy track that's brainy/zany enough for a dream collab between Cornelius and the Blow. "Genius Boy" casts another Konki Duet-er, Kumi Okamoto, in a Hypercolor aural cartoon. Oh, and Momus raps-- spitting words like "malarkey" darkly on ominous cut-and-paste "Syllabus of Errors".

O.Lamm mixes in some organic sounds, too. Sampled strings and disembodied vocal snippets drive the electro-funk plot of "The Macguffin". The wife of the computer voice from "Fitter Happier" gives way to trebly acoustic guitar on "Silviphoebia", while music-box chimes and spaced-out synths help mask a melody that's awkardly like "Good King Wenceslas". Sometimes O.Lamm follows his whims too far, as on "Electric Emily", an allusion to a William Vollmann story with yipping samples and murky percussion that irritate more than they exhilarate.

Since O.Lamm's whole deal is pixie stick-fueled excess-- jerky beats moving onto the next idea without ever quite settling into an easy groove-- his occasional excess excesses are pretty easily forgiveable. But I still can't help drooling over what he'd sound like if forced to work within more conventionally song-oriented limits, as he does here on "Open Malice" or on first YouTube video "Aerialist", which strings together enough vocal snippets to nearly resemble conventional verses. Monolith ends with a succession of voices, each asking, "Julie, what's the matter?" Dudes, this time I have no idea.
-Marc Hogan, February 08, 2007

O.Lamm - Monolith
[Audioversity]

O.lamm is a Frenchman named Olivier and his work expounds on my idealistic and perhaps particularly narrow view of French music. I'm thinking of disco balls, underwater filter sweeps, and a tendency towards unfettered fun. Not to say this is Daft Punk or even the Ed Banger camp, not even close, but o.lamm upholds the strong pop sensibility and smart hooks inherent in all great French electro wizardry.

Monolith isn't so much about robots getting off the bus. Its more like Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson dueling with Mega Man, all 8-bit pixelation and unadulterated fun. This is synth pop for the Nintendo generation. "Genius Boy" is a cavalcade of adventurous glitch, like a cartoon theme song for an all-star Nintendo character jam, before settling into sweet pop bliss complete with cute Japanese girl vocals. The excitement is palpable as you get deep into the string-groove of "The Macguffin", a track that finds perfect use for the high melodrama of female J-Pop, the type that soars on the wings of Ayumi Hamasaki and beyond.

"Open Malice" seems to be the "single" here. And by that I only mean that it has, y'know, the most wide-ranging appeal. Its a true dancefloor gem brimming with dirty King Koopa synth and detached electroclash vocals. Like if Annie hung out all the time with Miss Kitten about four years ago. Uh, that is if we assume such a splicing would achieve the best possible results. "Aerialist" is yet another of the record's highpoints. It makes me want to ride lazerbeams on a futuristic jetski!! And maybe the song is a bit of futurism in anticipating such an experience.

Monolith stands as a beacon of evolution, a hope for a better future, and we are all just apes hopping around waiting to be touched by the light.

O.Lamm: Monolith
Audio Dregs
Cagesan: I Love Machine
Beaubrun
[texture] CA

O.Lamm's third full-fledged album Monolith offers ADD-inspired insanity so dizzying it makes Drop The Lime and Kid606 sound wheelchair-bound by comparison. Squirrelly Gameboy melodies ricochet across splattering beats and buzzing bass lines while Japanese vocalists (Kumi Okamoto, Midori Hirano, Nobuko Hori, and Lullatone's Yoshimi Tonida) coo and chirp above the mayhem. In “Open Malice,” Zoé Wolf purrs a smoky, debonair vocal over a bleepy hailstorm of Mantronix beats and jackhammer voice edits while Momus' voice gets the Cuisinart treatment during the electro raver “Syllabus of Errors.” Perhaps the album's most ambitious composition, “Silviphobia” segues through various ballad (including a Japanese folk treatment of “Good King Wenceslas”) and funk episodes. O.Lamm spreads his stylistic wings widely with tracks veering into arcade electro, glass-shattering breakcore, lurching stutter-funk, romping ‘80s techno, and house territories, not to mention a warped hoedown romp (“Tammy Metempsycho Darling”). It's an oft- disorienting and wholly hyperactive ride yet there's no denying O.Lamm's programming wizardry and endlessly inventive imagination; best of all, no matter how spasmodic the tracks become, the France-based electronic musician never loses sight of the material's core musicality.

O.Lamm also contributes one of the better tracks to Cagesan's I Love Machine, a wacky fifteen-song collection of dada-styled mayhem. The conceit here is that Cagesan is a bird, specifically a Tasmanian Bicheno finch, whose debut album was generated in collaboration with an international group of electronic musicians (mostly French), each of whom produced a song based on the bird's singing. Whether or not Cagesan is a bird or the brainchild of illustrator Florence Manlik and musician Toog, bird twitter and chirps (which, incidentally, resemble a lamb's bleat, chimp's chatter, cat's meow, and even a squeezed rubber toy as much as they do bird calls) recur throughout, ensuring that the disparate parts retain a sense of unity. The music is playful and eccentric in the extreme, heavily indebted to arcade synth-pop and musique-concrète (Beatles' and Buggles' samples surface too), and successful more often than not (only MC Cat Genius's grotesque “Manteau de ville” grates). Cagesan's aviary includes arcade pop (Digiki, a sound artist based in Tokyo) and mercurial collages that mix nature sounds with keyboard melodies (Toog); Cubist Literature's (Craig Hunter Husted) “Parure royale” sounds like three-year-olds left unattended in a musical instrument showroom. It's not all craziness: remove the layers of fluttering noise from O.Lamm's “Écharpe et bonnet” and Olga's “Cape San de lumière” and you'll find rather charming examples of melodic electropop (Olga's more delicate moments even recalls Lullatone). Imagine the album that might have resulted had dadaists Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp played with samplers and software rather than cameras and paint and you'll have a fairly good impression of Cagesan's sound.
April 2007

O.Lamm - Monolith
[XLR8R] US

Monolith, the first U.S. release for French beat-monster O.Lamm, is a bizarre mix of cut-and-paste glitch and poppy dance music. Imagine Girl Talk collaborating with DAT Politics on some children's songs, and you'd nearly grasp his frenzied sound. 8-bit loops clash with choppy samples of conversations and violins, and guest spots from Momus and Midori Hirano add to the record's anything-goes M.O. From the orchestrated hustle of "The Macguffin" to the ADD-techno take on "Tammy Metempsycho Darling", Monlith is a fast-paced and often hilrious record that's too funn to resist.
-Josiah Hughes

O Lamm - Monolith
(The Wire, 275 January 2007) UK
Electronica. Reviewed by Ken Hollings

Overload and out of control, O Lamm’s third album doesn’t know when to stop, but that’s OK. You want to see where it’s going to go next. “Genius Boy” is a pachinko parlour of a song, delivered with breezy multi-tracked insouciance by Kumi Okamoto. “Open Malice” features Zoe Wolf managing to sound bored and engaging at the same time over a frenetic succession of breaks, beats and jerks. There’s also an old Melvins riff in here somewhere, plus a few dozen recordings of different people all saying “Julie, what’s the matter?” towards the end. Someone should program interactive toys to move around this madness, but they’d probably hurt themselves in the process, so maybe it’s a good idea if they don’t.

O.Lamm - Monolith
Groovesmag.com (USA)

The use of samples as discrete units, disengaged from their source material and woven together to generate tapestries of sound, is hardly new, having long ago become the preferred M.O. of hip-hop. But seldom has sampling sounded as fresh, inventive, and compelling as it does on Monolith, the third full-length from O.Lamm (a.k.a. Paris-based producer Odot Lamm). The title is as apt as any for the record, which is a veritable colossus of reconstructed sound with its hyperkinetic beats and ultra-sophisticated production, occasionally coupled with a composer’s sense for melody and intricate arrangements (as on the brooding and exotic “Silviphobia”). O.Lamm’s talents as a programmer and producer are absolutely prodigious in their execution, as on the phenomenal “The MacGuffin,” a piece that displays a technical virtuosity virtually unrivaled in the world of indie electronica. Experiencing vertigo when listening to music is a fairly infrequent occurrence, but at times Monolith is inclined to test the stamina of even the most resolute soul.

Stylistically redolent of the direction hinted at by Aphex Twin on his masterpiece of subversive R&B “Windowlicker,” Monolith also evokes the unique cut-up approach employed by post-hip-hop acts such as Prefuse 73 and Machine Drum. At times, Monolith even sounds like a 21st-century extension of the Art of Noise in its application of modern composition and found-sound thievery to dance-floor electronica. “Open Malice,” for instance, begins with an ominous and primitive Asteroids-esque synth melody and then succumbs to an outlandish fit of stuttering electronic absurdity. The album’s preponderance of Casiotone-like figures may initially come off as distracting, but the impressive programming suggests the fruit of some post-modern Rachmaninoff utilizing only 8-bit technology.

However saturated and prone to tedium the world of electronic pop music may have become, there is an undeniable intensity to Monolith that never flags for an instant, and proves O.Lamm to be, without question, one of the most ambitious and possibly important producers in recent memory. -Shaun McMahon

O.Lamm - Monolith
[Boomkat] UK

O.Lamm is the cleverly formed moniker of one Olivier Lamm, a Frenchman in case you were wondering. ‘Monolith’ is his latest excursion into the world of fractured electronics and chip-pop, and sees the crazy feller collaboration with a bunch of similarly minded weirdos. I’d say the record is unpredictable, but it’s almost so unpredictable that it’s come right around and become predictable again – I mean, I know very well that a track is going to launch into an 8-bit mentalist onslaught and then trip its way into 4/4 disco, it’s kind of obvious after hearing a few minutes of the musician’s work. Even so this is a largely enjoyable affair with enough Japanese-flecked videogame worship to make you wish it was 1985 again, and with beats programmed to utter perfection by a man who clearly knows his way around a laptop or two. This is I suppose the direction Tigerbeat 6 were going in for some time before they adopted ragga and electro-house, and it’s bound to appeal to fans of that end of the electronica scale. In essence O.Lamm creates party music, but music for the kind of party that’s likely to be going on in a disused squat and that’s probably going to be closed by police before it even gets started. Grubby, strange and somewhat better for it…

o.lamm - Genius Boy (Audio Dregs 2006)
o.lamm - Monolith / Audio Dregs

O.lamm is a Frenchman named Olivier and his work expounds on my idealistic and perhaps particularly narrow view of French music. I'm thinking of disco balls, underwater filter sweeps, and a tendency towards unfettered fun. Not to say this is Daft Punk or even the Ed Banger camp, not even close, but o.lamm upholds the strong pop sensibility and smart hooks inherent in all great French electro wizardry.

Monolith isn't so much about robots getting off the bus. Its more like Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson dueling with Mega Man, all 8-bit pixelation and unadulterated fun. This is synth pop for the Nintendo generation. "Genius Boy" is a cavalcade of adventurous glitch, like a cartoon theme song for an all-star Nintendo character jam, before settling into sweet pop bliss complete with cute Japanese girl vocals. The excitement is palpable as you get deep into the string-groove of "The Macguffin", a track that finds perfect use for the high melodrama of female J-Pop, the type that soars on the wings of Ayumi Hamasaki and beyond.

"Open Malice" seems to be the "single" here. And by that I only mean that it has, y'know, the most wide-ranging appeal. Its a true dancefloor gem brimming with dirty King Koopa synth and detached electroclash vocals. Like if Annie hung out all the time with Miss Kitten about four years ago. Uh, that is if we assume such a splicing would achieve the best possible results. "Aerialist" is yet another of the record's highpoints. It makes me want to ride lazerbeams on a futuristic jetski!! And maybe the song is a bit of futurism in anticipating such an experience.

Monolith stands as a beacon of evolution, a hope for a better future, and we are all just apes hopping around waiting to be touched by the light.

Un monolito
10 Enero 2007
O.Lamm deslumbra con un tercer álbum, Monolith, en el que se lanza al pop electrónico más sofisticado armado a partir de beats y algunos breaks, dando forma a veces a una suerte de electro funk punteado a lo de The Melvins pero, ojo al dato, tocado con una Gameboy. Psicodelia en la más pura tradición nipona que te activará el cerebro y alguna de tus extremidades. El álbum se edita en el recomendable sello francés de post-electrónica Active Suspension en el que ya han grabado gente como DAA, Avrocar, Magnétophone o Mils.

Tracklist:
01. La Chasse Aux Oiseaux (with Yoshimi Tomida)
02. Genius Boy (with Kumi Okamoto)
03. The Macguffin
04. Open Malice (with Zoé Wolf)
05. Return of the Night Goat
06. Tammy Metempsycho Darling
07. Syllabus of Errors (with Momus)
08. Silviphobia/O Meu Sonho Geometrico (with Midori Hirano)
09. Aerialist
10. ????????! (bring the noise)
11. Electric Emily (with Nobuko Hori)
12. City of Julie (with Cindy Lee)

O.Lamm – Monolith [cd, Active Suspension / Bang!]
Neurotisch, kinderlijk, pompeus, fluweelzacht, teder, elektrisch geladen, ranzig, rauw, subtiel, glitterend, vol, ronkend, zoet, supergedetailleerd, verknipt, briljant. Monolith van de Fransman Olivier Lamm, beter bekend als O.Lamm, Odot.Lamm en O.L.Lamm, is de confetti op je feestje. De bubbels in je Brut. De knal uit je strijker. De lipstick op je kraag. De vlinders in je buik. De lading uitgebalanceerde piepjes die als minuscule kristallen over dit meesterwerkje zijn gestrooid, de tunneldiepe bassen die je soms alleen voelt rammen in je darmen, de Sonic- en Tetris- nostalgie die je haast tot tranen toe overdondert bij het horen van de computerspelbleeps, de combinatie van tintelend lyrisch Frans en nonchalant-lieflijk Japans (onder meer te danken aan Lullatone-zangeres Yoshimi Tomida), maken op dit plaatje een ultiem Oh My God gevoel los.
Ok, het is dus elektronica. Maar dan erg sexy. Met veel gevoel voor eclectische samenhang, humor en avontuur. Met hier en daar new wave-, freakpop-, en rocknegingen. Gevoed door een techno-basis met een hang naar breakbeat.
Derde track The Macguffin, is een subliem stukje experimenteel geluid dat zij het niet je lijf, dan ongetwijfeld wel je geest in beweging brengt waarbij de onmogelijke combinatie geslaagd is tussen klassiek klavecimbel en happy-Jap-pop.
Het Parijse Active Suspension-label heeft onder andere Domotic, Hypo, en The Konki Duet op stal. Met Monolith als nieuwe plaat van O.Lamm heeft het label een losgeslagen paard laten ontsnappen. Ik zou zeggen: get up and gallop!
(Maria Cristina Fazecas)
http://www.bodyspace.net/album.php?album_id=833
Contagem de casualidades clínicas entre personagens Manga ao som de Monolith: 46
Despachem-se desde já as formalidades: O. Lamm é francês e orgulhosamente anónimo – concede entrevistas pouco detalhadas quanto à sua identidade e é habitualmente fotografado com metade do rosto oculto. Impressos no passaporte musical, os carimbos de dois discos que lhe terão merecido reputação útil à angariação de um cosmopolita elenco de luxo integrado, como ouro sobre azul, no animado terror digital de Monolith. A saber, sacrificam-se à centrifugação, em glitch e beats aos milhares, as vozes de Yoshimi Tomida (Lullatone), Midori Hironi (talento oriundo da label Noble) e Momus, que, muito provavelmente, será o mais nipónico dos ocidentais (e adorado por isso). Mas não bastam ser ilustres os intervenientes se não suarem Monolith com a inspiração armazenada. Disco simpático, não? Muito mais que isso. Adiante.
Contagem de casualidades clínicas entre personagens Manga ao som de Monolith: 293
Como se possuído pelo diabo exibicionista que normalmente ocupa a alma de Shitmat ou Kid 606, O. Lamm exibe a sua artilharia de breaks com a urgência de um lutador Mortal Kombat com dois minutos à disposição da sua arte marcial (Sub-Zero desesperado pela oportunidade de aliviar a sua gélida bexiga, por exemplo). Mas não é só de breaks que se faz um disco triunfante - quem dera ao recém-assumido burguesismo de Jay-Z deitar mãos ao loop de cordas ( aa aa aa-b-c-a) que, a custo, tenta exorcizar a maciçamente brilhante “The Macguffin” de um fragmentado histerismo TATU. Sem misericórdia ou intervalo para recuperação de equilíbrio
vertical, “Open Malice” invoca, ao Konki Duet, os préstimos de Zoé Wolf, para coroar uma sobrepovoada ilha de delírio onde coabitam electro maquiavélico, techno alcalino e um loop industrial, que, por si só, revoluciona a postura a manter face a um disco que, à partida, pareceria muito mais inofensivo. Redondo engano.
Contagem de casualidades clínicas entre personagens Manga ao som de Monolith: 511
O peito de Bulma explode violentamente. Coraçãozinho de Satan sorve o sangue projectado sobre o seu rosto como se fosse geleia de morango. Tartaruga Genial renega ao luto com um head spin acelerado pelo flow de Momus em “Syllabus of Errors”. O. Lamm vence o dia. Este e todos os próximos.
Contagem de casualidades clínicas entre personagens Manga ao som de Monolith: 978
Nem tão pouco importa que o naturalismo filtrado pela placa sonora de um Gameboy – tal como se escuta em “Silviphoebia” - venha, a certa altura, suavizar a gravidade do Armagedão pixelado. Monolith necessitara apenas dos 20 minutos antecedentes a esse abrandamento para, com uma versatilidade a todos os níveis surpreendente, ditar que o novo terrorismo digital pode ser executado a partir de um laptop fabricado, em parceria, pela Chicco e Lego. Algures, treme de medo o macaco do vídeo “Sexy Boy” dos compatriotas Air (isto se não tremerem também eles quando comparados com O. Lamm).
Contagem de casualidades clínicas entre personagens Manga ao som de Monolith: 1540 (encontram-se extintos os universos Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon R, Evangelion (como anular o apocalipse com o apocalipse?),Conan, o Rapaz do Futuro, entre tantos outros)
Odeio ter de admiti-lo, mas torna-se inevitável sob a influência prolongada de Monolith: desde Plugs Plus dos Dat Politics que não era tamanha a vontade de ser um panda imbecil movido a pilhas.
Miguel Arsénio
migarsenio@yahoo.com
09/01/2007

o.lamm: Monolith
Label: Active Suspension
Barcode: 3433435675029
‘Monolith,’ Frenchman Olivier Lamm's fifth release, hyperactively explores simple ideas complicated by a minimalist, cut 'n paste glitch technique fascinating in its tightly-edited and repetitive melodies. Featuring a broad range of guest vocalists, O.Lamm's pointilistic sounds populate a warped Franco-Asian jukebox as restless as Cornelius' attention span. The opening melody of "Silviphobia" is found in the 13th-century "Tempus Adest Floridum," but in guest vocalist Midori Hirano hands, it mutates into a tale concerning something called a "geometric nightmare." Nick Currie sounds more like Mike Skinner than Momus on his vocal contribution, titled (what else?) "Syllabus of Errors"- it's his best work for a few years and the high point of this disc, which O.Lamm's music strongly but slowly leads toward a re-appropriation of Curry's Rick Wakeman detournments from a few years back ("architect-terriaki" - say that a few times. Momus shows a flash of his lyrical genius). "Open Malice" is also a highlight, establishing a quirky rhythm at the track's beginning and featuring the breathy vocals of Zoé Wolf, it continues to its conclusion, 5.18 minutes later, riding out a hypnotic glitch groove for the better part of the track's total running time, a trick repeated on many other tracks, such as the instrumentals "Return of the Night Goat" and "Tammy Metempsycho Darling." This is compelling stuff - now I need to check out this man's back

O.Lamm - Monolith
Active Suspension
Alors que la scène électronique semble avoir perdu tout sens d’auto dérision depuis des lustres, nous offrant en majeur partie des oeuvres policées, il n’en va pas de même avec O.Lamm, bidouilleur hors pair de sons qui glitchent et surfent sur des rythmes en roues libres. Avec Monolith, son troisième album, il atteint des sommets d’inventivité joueuse et brinquebalante, amusant la galerie à s’égarer dans des dédales de rythmes qui perdent les pédales, oubliant au passage qu’ils sont la colonne vertébrale de titres Electro Pop Futuristes bien décidés à nous faire couper la tête, un sourire pervers au milieu du visage. Les compteurs s’affolent a milieu de mélodies venues d’une quatrième dimension à l’imagination débridée proche de la galaxie de son copain Hypo. Sur Monolith, l’on danse en se percutant la face contre terre, comme pour ne pas laisser s’échapper ce groove insidieux qui vous attrape par le colbac et vous envoie tournoyer dans un roman de Dantec ravagé par des drogues nouvelles au nom imprononçable et qui font de vous un surhomme prêt à affronter sur le dancefloors n’importe quel danseur cyber scientologue. Les beats aiment se muter en breaks explosifs, cuttant au passage l’espace vitale d’élèves trop sages appliqués à étudier la technologie au détriment de l’émotion intuitive. Un des albums les plus allumés de cette année. Très fortement recommandé.
Roland Torres