Slapp Happy, the Douanier Rousseau sound

Sur la pochette de la réédition cd de Casablanca Moon/Desperate Straights, on peut lire : "Welcome to the strange world of Slapp Happy. Listening to this cd even once, instantly confer on the listener honorary membership in one on the most exclusive "cult followings" in the history of pop music.(...)Anthony and I thought of ourselves as imposters, but with the cocky insecurity of youth, we were sure we could come up with something that listeners might mistake for pop music. Our producer (...) encouraged us to develop the music we called "Naïve rock, the Douanier Rousseau sound"."
Cet album, Casablanca Moon, est un réenregistrement de Acnalbasac Noom réalisé l'année précédente avec les musiciens de Faust à Hambourg. Les ultras lui préfèrent d'ailleurs cette 1ere version.

C'est un petit bijou de pop décalée et ironique, truffé de chansons qui auraient pu être des tubes ou des classiques. Mais la bizarrerie transparait derrière les mélodies pop. La voix de Dagmar apporte une touche Opéra de Quat'sous décalée sur les paroles étranges de Casablanca Moon :
He used to wear fedoras but now he sports a fez / There's cabalistic innuendoes in everything he says / Sucking on a cigarette picking up the threads / Underneath the Casablanca Moon.He lurks behind a paper in the shadow of a mosque / He can't count all the continents he's crossed / Trailing party members leavin' footprints in the frost. underneath the Acnalbasac Noom.His cover was broken / Somewhere in Hoboken / The man said his case was lost / He was sent to the Orient / A double-agent double-crossed.There's a cocaine stain on his moustache / The pieces of his puzzle just don't join / People in high places want to stamp his many faces on a Trans-caucasian coin.He'd better watch is step / 'Cause sooner or later / They'll find his headless body in a ventilator.