4 out of 5

Label: Deewee

Produced by: Pim Gombeer (engineered by)

I don’t know much about comedian / performance artist Kim Noble, but from what I do know, and given Stephen and David Dewaele’s – Soulwax’s – history with shifting through genres and personas, their soundtracking of Kim’s ‘Lullaby for Scavengers’ seems well-suited. For this project, Noble “lived next to a fox den” and “befriended a fox family,” by the wiki description; the voiceover he gives to the Dewaeles’ music uses an altered voice to, I guess, speak as one of the foxes – now stuffed? – and its relationship with a squirrel, but there’s also some very meta prattle about discussing the soundtrack itself with the Dewaeles, and playing some music for his (the fox’s? Kim’s?) father…

This wouldn’t work with artists who aren’t experienced at dialing in kitsch to exacting effect: the aforementioned genre-shifting has given Soulwax / Stephen and David opportunity to act as DJs and documentarians of sorts of areas or instruments; ‘Lullaby’ is book-ended by soft synths that are haunting reflections of the melodies often employed on more “rock” Soulwax projects, but its produced with a kind of glossy temper that makes Noble’s overlain narration have a storybook quality – hence the funny voice and talks of squirrels isn’t out of place. The seven tracks that comprise the set (if you have the cassette, it’s repeated on both sides) segue seamlessly between this melody and soft grooves, and legit beats, but I quite liked that it’s moderated to be linked to Noble, whose contributions poke in and out of the music along the way. That is: neither side of this necessarily would work alone, with Kim’s 4th-wall wanderings not substantial enough as a spoken word performance, and the Dewaeles’ efforts too slight to be worth it for Soulwax fans (and also probably a reason to not bill themselves under that name). One could maybe wish the combined effect was… more affecting, but this seems rather in line with Kim’s persona: reading over his projects, they can be both fantastic and dismissive at the same time.

I referenced the cassette; there’s some fun stuff in the liner notes comparing a theater experience to home listening, and some amusing text from Kim.