(!K7/Inertia)

NYC-based electro-hiphop MC Princess Superstar’s (aka Concetta Kirschner) previous 2002 album ‘Is’ showed her crossing over to a considerably larger audience, a process significantly aided by the breakout UK pop success of her ‘Bad Babysitter’ single alongside Kool Keith, which introduced her trashy, sex-obsessed yet whip-smart lyrical style to those outside the usual electro / hiphop sphere. It actually took me a couple of seconds to register that this latest album ‘My Machine’ is in fact Princess Superstar’s fifth full-length offering (she’s obviously been releasing material much further back than I thought), and for her latest longplayer she’s not only made the return to NYC from Berlin, she’s also set her sights on constructing a sprawling concept-driven album that features the input of an extremely impressive lineup of artists and producers.

With the overarching storyline centred around a dystopian future in which Princess Superstar has become ‘The Superstar’, killing off all of the other celebrities and replacing them with duplicates of herself, so that she is essentially the only celebrity – ‘the only popstar, actor, weathergirl’, there’s certainly plenty of detail packed in here and you’re certainly forgiven for being confused at various points (with even the skit announcer letting slip that even he doesn’t quite know what’s going on at one point), and much of the press surrounding the release of ‘My Machine’ has focussed on it’s dense, conceptual nature, with comparisons being made to The Who’s ‘Tommy.’ While the comparison certainly seems a tad overheated (after all, hiphop has made long-concept-driven albums linked together by ‘skit’ sections / interludes its stock-in-trade for years now), ‘My Machine’ is certainly the most ambitious project Kirschner has tackled so far, and one that in practice works with somewhat mixed results.

After an intro skit section that introduces “the maniacal Superstar” and her army of 10,000 Duplicants courtesy of a time-travelling MC narrator ‘comissioned to travel back as a kind of time-barrier hype-man’, ‘I Like It A Lot’ kicks things straight into garage rock-riff laden electro-punk, with Armand Van Helden laying down serrated CBGBs-style distorted guitar and bass around clicking electro rhythms, while Superstar wails into the mic like some possessed hybrid of Siouxsie and The Slits’ Ari Up – a suitably impressive and furious start – you can almost visualise her prowling the stage with menace as the guitars and beats lock down into a furious rhythmic stomp. After this rock-laden opening, ‘The Classroom’ opens this album’s storyline properly, with Superstar assuming the role of a teacher instructing children in the future accustomed to communicating purely via telepathy how to use their voices, and while it’s certainly a suitably effective fusion of Superstar’s conversational flow and cracking angular electro-hiphop beats courtesy of The Loose Cannons and Jon Plateau Selvig, when effects start getting applied to Superstar’s vocals, sending her up into a high-pitched chipmunk-esque squeal so that she can do the child characters, it ends up wearing a little thin – especially over repeated listening. ‘On Top Bubble’ shows Kirschner taking the producer’s chair for a crisp slice of smooth electro-laced hiphop that recalls Timbaland’s sheeny clicking productions, Superstar’s rolling chorus hook of “Unstoppable / undroppable” sliding tightly over a fat live bassline, wafting synth loops and smooth handclaps, before ‘The Mysterious Hanger’ centres on The Superstar plotting evil schemes in her lair alongside her Duplicant army, while Junior Sanchez takes things down into dark, buzzing EBM-laced electro territory, slamming industrial snares wreaking destruction behind eerie detached female chorus vocals and an oddly Middle Eastern-sounding synth hook.

‘10,000 Hits’ shows Superstar taking lyrical aim at Missy Elliot and her awards show ilk over a DJ Mighty Mi beat in one of this album’s most amusing interludes (“I don’t care if it’s shitty / Do you know who else once won a Grammy / Ace Of Base and Milli Vanilli”), while although ‘Quitting Smoking Song’s lyrical intent is admirable, in practice it comes across a slightly throwaway moment that sits oddly outside the conceptual flow of the rest of the album – a factor not helped by the slightly wearing, sing-song chorus lyrics and fairly nondescript beats. ‘Initially’ rolls with a conga-laden swing and live bass groove that calls to mind LCD Soundsystem, courtesy of Arthur Baker (who also acts as executive producer on this album) and MOTOR’s Mr. No., spiralling analogue synths and metallic snares cutting a streamlined path around Superstar’s effects-treated sneering vocals in one of this album’s most storming dancefloor-oriented moments, while standout highlight title track ‘My Machine’ sees Superstar joining forces with Jacques Lu Cont to create a fabulous bright, juddering fusion of blip-hop synths ands cracking beats, Superstar’s sung chorus fusing beautifully with a vocoded male voice as bleepy chords slide through the mix alongside eerie machine-like buzzes, epic washing synths adding a sense of melacholic grandeur that caps it all off. As for the suitably epic denouement; does The Superstar succeed in her evil plan? Or does the discovery by one of her Duplicants of a ‘machine that makes happiness’ prove to be her ultimate undoing? I won’t be the one to spoil it for you.

While ‘My Machine’ is certainly a strong new album from Princess Superstar that certainly contains its fair share of stellar moments, I couldn’t help but feel that to a large extent, much of the overall impact (and indeed coherency) of this album was lessened by its somewhat sprawling nature, with no less than 25 tracks packed in over its 77 minute running time. After repeated listens, the sense creeps in that ‘My Machine’ could have been an absolute stunning album if Kirschner had perhaps made more judicious use of her editing function; and if you whittled out some of the less-inspiring segue sections that often serve to disrupt the flow, you could definitely fashion a storming (and no doubt more digestible) mixtape of your own. Princess Superstar is certainly brimming with ideas and ‘My Machine’ is dense with pop-culture references and lyrical targets that you’ll spend repeated listens deciphering, but while I’m certainly not questioning her skills, in this case there’s the overrarching sense that perhaps a little too much is being packed in here, leading to an incoherent and slightly unwieldy listening experience overall.

Check out http://www.princesssuperstar.com and http://www.k7.com.