Baron Zen - At The Mall (Peanut Butter Wolf Remix)

Exercice inhabituel et surprenant chez Stones Throw avec ce morceau punk funk dépressif et opiacé de Baron Zen, remixé par Peanut Butter Wolf. At The Mall confirme que les centres commerciaux américains  de la Côte Ouest sont aussi dépressifs que la zone commerciale de Plaisir (78) un dimanche après-midi. Seulement, il n'y a encore eu personne pour en chanter les vertus en s'accompagnant d'un synthé pourri.

Plutôt que de mal traduire et de mal paraphraser la bio de Baron Zen, j'ai préféré faire un copier/coller sauvage. Pour toi lecteur avide de tout savoir sur Baron Zen, tu trouveras donc ci-dessous sa bio officielle mise à disposition sur le site de Stones Throw. 

Peanut Butter Wolf, before making his name as a DJ and Producer and before founding Stones Throw Records, was programming drums for a one-man punk rock/disco army known as Baron Zen. Known, that is, to almost no one, because Baron Zen did not play shows, did not release records, rejected all forms of publicity, and above all, rejected the boundaries separating hip-hop, disco, punk rock, and pop.

Sweet Steve is the man behind Baron Zen. His recording career as Baron Zen lasted from 1988 to 1992, the best of which is collected on this album – his first and only. He was ahead of his time in the ‘80s, but the times have been threatening to catch up with him. Baron Zen today sounds like the missing link between PIL and DFA ... or suburban punk rock garage bands of the 80s and the DJ culture of today ... or The Dead Milkmen if they had been hip-hop b-boys.

Baron Zen is DIY music that wears its pop influence on its sleeve: covers of Joy Division, Gap Band, Katrina and the Waves, and high-energy disco classic “When I Hear Music” by Debbie Deb play along side Sweet Steve’s originals, many of which are odes to Steve’s frustration of being a hip-hop & disco DJ stuck in suburbia.