Je Suis Animal – Self Taught Magic From A Book
Posted by Chris Buckle, Wed 26 Nov 2008

These days ‘twee’ may have become a euphemism for bed-wetting and sensitive simpering, but it was once so much more. Je Suis Animal remember those days: the days of The Wedding Present and blissed-out guitar fuzz, of C86, rough edges and Talulah Gosh. It’s there in the reverb wash of Secret Place, the eerie drone chorus of The Mystery of Marie Roget and the lo-fi percussion driving Good To Me’s sighs of ‘I love you’. But all this talk of the past threatens to overlook the inventiveness that flows through Self Taught Magic From A Book from beginning to end. For example, a solo played on the humble school recorder may be Twee cliché 101, but when it interrupts the melancholic melody of It’s Love, it cuts through both sentiment and distortion, preventing the album’s shoe-gaze haze from becoming suffocating. Beautiful yet edgy, dreamy yet sinister – Je Suis Animal are twee as fuck.