A Giggly Italian Exports The Gift of ‘Gabber’

The song “Indie Bad, Gabber Good” is a perfect introduction into the bizarre world of sounds and ideas created by Miss Violetta Beauregarde. For this snidely titled lark from her new album “Odi Profanum Vulgus et Arceo” (Temporary Residence), the solo Italian electronic artist constructs a morass of tightly packed, thumping beats in rapid succession, recalling the Dutch blend of danceable industrial techno that came to be called “gabber” in the early 1990s. Over it she screams something — maybe in English, maybe in Italian, it’s too incomprehensible to say — while a squiggly electronic sound punctures the beats after her every verse. The whole thing lasts a total of 18 seconds.“Indie Bad, Gabber Good” celebrates a now niche form of dance music and uses it to draw a line in the sand against “indie.” Gabber was always a more extreme sound, a “hardcore” of Europe’s 1990s dance explosion that distanced itself from the feel-good party vibes of commercial dance clubs. Gabber is confrontational and aggressive, things that “indie,” in this case, is not. Indie here isn’t the independent underdog of the corporate music industry but the great middle of cool spawned by the rise of Web zines and blogs as hipster barometers.On the other hand, the sort of metaawareness that informs the 18 seconds of noise on “Indie Bad”— as well as the whole quasi-conceptual, one-person experimental electronic performer — is the ripe heart and soul of one stratum of underground electronic music right now. Miss Violetta Beauregarde’s music is equal parts hipster affront and cheeky in-joke.She’ll bring her hard-hitting ball of contradictions to the Bowery Ballroom on September 1.Such awareness seeps into everything created by Miss Violetta Beauregarde, the nom de performance of Cristina Gauri. A pixieish sprout of combative dark-haired cuteness — think Audrey Tautou circa “Amelie” crossed with Kathleen Hanna circa Bikini Kill — Ms. Gauri’s musical persona is as carefully sculpted as her music. Continuing the embedded self-commentary of artists like DAT Politics, Kid606, and Chicks on Speed, Gauri’s song and album titles are mini essays in self-deprecation and glib humor — i.e. “How to Use a Good Idea Till It Turns Into a Bad Idea,” “Adolf Hitler’s Emotional Side,” and her home page, www.violettasucks.com. Even her name is outlandish, a Roald Dahl nod twisted into silly old European pomposity that ends up sounding like a character left out of “Candide.”Just resist the urge to lump Ms. Gauri alongside Peaches’s shtick. All the extra-musical trappings surrounding Miss Violetta Beauregarde are merely for calibration — Ms. Gauri overstuffs her music with ideas as well. “Flanger When You Die” and “Amelie Free Youth” are unruly eruptions of noise and distorted vocals that are just as aggressive as “Indie Bad, Gabber Good.”Elsewhere, though, Ms. Gauri turns out catchy, if damaged, electro-pop. She decorates a percolating drum track with punchy video-game sound flowers on the hummable “Try to Misunderstand This One.” She turns glitch abstraction into ambient, ethereal Kate Bush washes in “The Dirt Between My Feet Fingers.” And with “I’m the Tiennamen Square Guy and You Are All the [expletive] Tanks,” Ms. Guari weds a warm guitar riff to a buoyant beat and cranks out something as close to lighthearted summer jam as she is going to get.Best of all, though, is that the 16 tracks on “Odi Profanum” whip by in just under 20 minutes, with only two songs inching close to the two-minute mark. Like noise extremists such as early Prurient or Kites, Ms. Gauri knows that the excessive volume of circuit-bending ear assaults is easier to take when it doesn’t overstay its welcome. In such compact doses, Miss Violetta Beauregarde is a giggly breath of adrenaline, a kiss that hits the cheek like a fist.Miss Violette Beauregarde will play the Temporary Residence showcase at the Bowery Ballroom on September 1 with Envy, Sleeping People, and a DJ set from Four Tet. For more information, call 212-260-4700.

A Giggly Italian Exports The Gift of ‘Gabber’

A Giggly Italian Exports The Gift of ‘Gabber’

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