by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I love Joni Mitchell,” says Prototypes bassist Stéphane Bodin. It’s a surprising admission for those who know the French trio for their 2004 debut album, Tout le monde cherche quelque chose à faire, and its shit-kicking electropunk single, “Danse sur la merde.” But acoustic guitars and harmonica, along with the riffs, rhythms and organ trills of ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll, rule the school on Mutants Médiatiques, the effervescent and ever-danceable new Prototypes LP.

Tellingly, the CD booklet features each band member with a word balloon containing one element of their multilateral “mutant media”—electro, rock and folk. “A few years ago, we were listening almost exclusively to punky, metallic music,” Bodin explains, “but then we rediscovered calmer styles. Folk, even country-folk, which we never would have thought we’d be into. But that doesn’t stop me from listening to my noisy records.”

According to Bodin, the French tend to believe that folk began with Bob Dylan rather than Dylan’s mentor Woody Guthrie, but it was Guthrie and his contemporaries like Leadbelly, as well as later crossover artists like Neil Young, that got under Prototypes’ collective skin.

“We just dove into it,” Bodin says. “We wanted to incorporate the sounds we really liked at that moment while sticking to the Prototypes aesthetic, without diluting the sound that we established. It wasn’t easy.”

The work paid off for Prototypes, who are no strangers to challenge, and for their fans across Europe and in pockets of North America (even anglo pockets, as the band is currently in top-secret talks about producing their next album in the U.S.). Bodin and guitarist François Marché have been musical conspirators since they were childhood friends, a partnership that initially resulted in three sample-based albums and several tours, including a date at Montreal’s MEG festival in 2000, as Bosco.

“Bosco was all mixed up—punk, rock, bossa nova, salsa, there was no limit to the gimmicks. ‘Everybody’s dancing this mess around,’” recalls Bodin, quoting the B-52’s. Enter singer Isabelle Le Doussal, with whom Bodin had crossed paths at parties when she was studying architecture and he was studying fine arts at the same university. Later, when Bodin and Marché were resident DJs at a small club in Paris, they hired Le Doussal to sing, a service she’d been offering for some time. As Bubble Star, the singer was available for both vernissages and house calls.

“She was involved in the contemporary-art gallery scene, but she also did performances at people’s houses,” says Bodin. “You could book her for a dinner party, for example, so instead of playing a record, Isabelle would sing and play minimal punk with dancey rhythms, with a synth and a beatbox.”

Apart from the physical and sonic shifts from mounds of machinery to minimal arrangements, now half-electronic, half-acoustic, the key transition from Bosco to Prototypes was the songwriting, a substantial leap considering Bosco didn’t write songs.

“We didn’t think we were capable,” admits Bodin. “When we met Isabelle, everything changed, so Prototypes is more structured. There’s always a chorus around the corner.”

CD launch with DJ Cherry Cola at Zoobizarre
on Saturday, Dec. 3, 9 p.m., $6

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