Sebastien Tellier

Leave it to the French to be fashionably late. Having trekked out in a hurry to East London to make the 7:00pm start time, DiS gets to pull a bit of a Radiohead and queue up outside of Rough Trade for over half an hour in the freezing cold before being allowed in.

Low temperatures be damned though, because we’re all here for what turns out to be a standout performance by* Sébastien Tellier*. He of the long beard and hair whose current incarnation as a ‘sexual sociologist’ has already quickened a few critical pulses of late with the Italo-disco swagger of recent single_ ‘Sexual Sportswear’ - produced by Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and taken from Tellier’s third album Sexuality_.

Finally arriving onstage, Tellier steps out in front of the audience wearing the trademark white shirt and geriatric sunglasses he’s been sporting in recent press photos. The man may claim to be more of a conceptual artist than an intellectual pop star, but leading his accompanying two band members headlong into the sweaty future funk of ‘Fingers of Steel’ or the electro R ‘n’ B of_ ‘Une Heure’_, it’s clearly evident that Tellier is part of a long lineage of maverick French pop song-writers. Like Gainsbourg before him, Tellier reinterprets often-times kitsch elements of the English speaking pop world to create something that’s at once familiar yet has a whiff of the exhilarating new about it. It’s a specific act of musical alchemy the French excel at and, in its own unique way, is only matched in by the Japanese.

Equally absurd and absolutely sincere in his every utterance and sentiment, Tellier’s balancing act is as heartfelt as it is occasionally comedic. Which means that between every_ ‘L’Amour et La Violence’ _ - a stunning piece of melancholic balladry - we’re also subjected to the man’s hilarious asides. He repeatedly tells us how happy he is to be playing in Berlin again, before whispering in his stilted English, “Don’t worry, this is just a little joke for me and the band”. At the heart of it, what you get tonight is a performance by a rare breed of idiot-pop savant, one entirely free of the rules and pretensions we normally expect. And of course, when he finally plucks out the opening piano keys of ‘La Ritournelle’, the audience let out a cheer before straining with all ears to hear what may still be his career-defining highlight. It’s a shame the world doesn’t churn out more Telliers. We could certainly use them.

Photo: Tyler Wolff