Ask me for my desert island top five songs that feature vocals from real dogs and I’d probably mention Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing,” Mitski’s “I’m Your Man,” Beach Boys’ “Caroline, No,” maybe Fiona Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.” In most cases, the barking adds a touch of ambient vérité or, in Mitski’s case, impending doom: “I’ll meet judgment by the hounds,” she sings, and the hounds in question start yapping hungrily around the edges, threatening more than judgment. Now, there’s a new contender: “Plastique Couch,” the centerpiece of Panorama, the third solo album from singer and bassist Hélène Barbier. It’s a woozily entrancing kiss-off where everything sounds slightly askew, as though it were soundtracking a dream sequence in a Michel Gondry film. Wacky back-up vocals dart in and out, different after each chorus, and in the final iteration, they’re supplied by Barbier’s fluffy mountain dog, Toody, in a series of gruff barks. But Toody doesn’t sound like she’s interrupting the session or freaking out at a delivery truck. She sounds like she’s locked into the groove.
That perpetual nonchalance is key to Barbier’s wigged-out appeal. Her lyrics, though cryptic, often evoke ruptured relationships and existential malaise. But across this oddly addictive album of laconic and playful art-punk, she never loses her cool. “Pour toi, le temps n’a rien arrangé,” she purs on “Dans l’os”—that is, “For you, time hasn’t fixed anything”—but she doesn’t sound especially rattled. “Water,” the most conventional song here, tempers its icy contempt (“When you die, I won’t smile,” the singer croons) with chiming guitars that resemble Tom Verlaine at his most expressionistic. The synth-splattered “Milquetoast” is a deceptively jovial tune about being bored and wanting to go home. Barbier chants the two-syllable title over and over like it’s a new delicacy: “Milk! Toast, toast.”
