An album that was born to be loved but remains surprisingly unfound, is the worst kind of album to introduce a band through. Belgian band Jo Lemaire + Flouze’s Pigmy World sounds unlike anything else in their discography but remains a stunning example of what happens when you reinvent your sound in a way few people expected. Deeply influenced, in equal measure, by Durutti Column-esque post-punk, Gainsbourgian French Pop, Afro-Pop, and Afro-Caribbean minimalism, Pigmy World, what still stands as their third and final album, remains this wonderful kiss off to their fans, who simply wondered what did they just hear?
Led by the still magnetic, and quite popular, Belgian singer, Jo Lemaire, Flouze had roots in Belgium’s first wave punk scene. Originally in 1977, they were, as mentioned elsewhere, a collaborative effort between married couple Philippe Depireux and Jo Lemaire to experiment with punk, boogie, and early New Wave fashion/music. Of their three album discography, the first two remain solely grounded in the sound de rigueur of the time: wiry, angular, Siouxsie Sioux and Pretenders-like rock — albeit one that perfectly suited Jo’s deeper, seductive vocal register.
After those two initial releases, it became painfully obvious to them that they were in danger of being also-rans, lacking a clear purpose. In 1981, they found something (or some things) that could inspire them, and would inspire their next release. Befriending Vini Reilly, they came across his delayed-guitar sound and instantly fell in love with it. On their next album they invited him over to Belgium, trying to see if they could marry it with a new synthetic sound they were experimenting with.
Pigmy World was Jo Lemaire and Philippe Depireux’s wild attempt to stretch out their creative grip on far flung styles they had little business attempting, but somehow finding ways to pull off. Their single “Je Suis Venue Te Dire Que Je M’en Vais” found them embracing their Francophone roots and reimagining the stunning title track from Serge Gainsbourg’s Vu De L’extérieur as an even bigger-hearted lament, one which still remains a stellar idea of what the ‘80s big sound could be. The meat of the album, though would lie in things and songs that sound entirely unlike each other and this.
“Shades of Night” a song featuring Vini Reilly, imagines what Durutti Column would sound like if they embraced dark, overtly engaging Pop maximalism. Just hearing them flesh out Vini’s sound even further than his own usual self is a must-listen treat for any music lover. You still get faint rumblings of their older sound in songs like “Satellites” and “Siamese Sister” but on songs like “Chameleon” you hear things that would be unheard of for them to attempt to do.
“Chameleon” imagines the Congolese Rumba, or to be more exact, the Malian groove of Africa, into something that could live in the New Wave sphere they were born out of. As astounding as the previous highlights are, this song (as out of step as it was) sounds like a natural growth to the varied, Gallic reach they were scouring through, looking for “their” sound. As they change their colors again, another Vini Reilly-assisted song like “Voices In The Silence” expresses the many gradients in palette they could add to any house’s style, which the Factory Records sound (sometimes) forgot to explore fully.
For it’s time, for how well it has aged, and for the many, varied should-have-been hits, this album deserves far better than its current, out of print, situation. In less than 40 minutes you get to hear to what amounts to be a mixtape of various far, far more interesting angles Jo and Flouze could have taken, but couldn’t due to “irreconcilable differences”.